


The Invasive Amnesia

by Kgdragoon



Series: The End of the World, As We Know It [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alien Invasion, Aliens, Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Gen, Inspired by Welcome to Night Vale, Mystery, Science Fiction, Time Travel, college students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-19 06:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22506343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kgdragoon/pseuds/Kgdragoon
Summary: Is amnesia contagious? People are left with holes in their memory. Others disappear but no one seems to notice, or care. A group of friends are dragged into the mystery when one of their own goes missing. Clara tries to find the Doctor when everything she knows is gone. And a strange girl may hold the key to the mystery plaguing Roswell, if only she could remember...
Relationships: The Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald, The Doctor & The Doctor's TARDIS, Twelfth Doctor & Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: The End of the World, As We Know It [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619287
Kudos: 1





	1. Disoriented in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there are definitely *not* zombies, no matter what the newbie says.  
> Elsewhere: Clara is surprisingly okay with lethal weapons, and she is definitely **not** coming back to this popsicle stand again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Originally posted on FFN

It was a thoroughly unspectacular night, moderate in temperature even more so than the nights before or after it had been or would be. The hot hand of summer was loosening its grip, and citizens often found themselves enjoying the pleasant temperatures heralding the promise of colder weathers. Days were warm, but not unbearably so, and nights were cool, every night seemingly cooler than the last. The temperature was set to continue its downward trend.

And in the midst of this thoroughly unspectacular night, a girl was waking up in an alleyway; the stone pavement was cold beneath her, and slightly damp. She opened her eyes, blinking repeatedly, each dim reflection of light seemed like a needle piercing her retinas. The stars were violent whorls above her, and the glassy haze of streetlamps seemed like clouds of fire. Her body felt strange, surreal, and foreign, like it wasn't even her body at all.

Still lying on the ground, she contemplated her present state. She could taste blood in her mouth, the tang lingering after many hours, and when a gust of wind blew across her skin, she knew it was exactly 68 degrees Fahrenheit, 20 degrees Celsius, or 293 degrees Kelvin. Sniffing the air, she could make out each individual scent, from the pervasive stench of car exhaust to the sweet lingering aroma of a 24 hour bakery. Her stomach growled ferociously, turning over on itself with a nauseous feeling. She realized that she was hungry, starved, and this prompted her to action.

She sat up, like a zombie straight out of Hollywood, and looked around, cocking her head to the side exactly like a dog contemplating the direction of a scent. She was surrounded on two sides by high brick buildings; she picked out the direction of the sweet smell almost immediately. She stood, her legs wobbly and uncertain, and then she set off towards the bakery.

When the chimes rang above the bakery door, the nearly asleep employee was surprised, to say the least. The girl in front of her was odd, and that **was** saying the least. She was dressed in a white cotton nightgown without slippers or shoes. Her nightgown was one of the most simple in existence, starting just below her collarbone and ending at her calves, with loosely fitted sleeves that ended at her elbow, and no trace of frill or pattern. The girl herself was a sight to behold, dirtied from head to toe, her hair a rats nest above her shoulders (and also a most shocking white); her eyes were an endless, dark blue, looking hungrily at the employee.

The employee, a rather average girl of perhaps 18 years, took one look at the person in front of her and ran out the back door. She was yelling something incoherent about zombies.

The girl tilted her head to one side in curiosity, surrounded by rows of delectable displays, entirely unattended; she decided to taste some of the abandoned delights. And though she did not know what kind of foods she liked (she didn't even know her own name), she did find that each pastry she sampled was more delicious than the last. When one dessert from every display had been eaten, she was finished, and left.

With no memory, no place to return to, and no destination in mind, she wandered around aimlessly, humming to herself. Had anyone heard the tune they would have thought it sounded familiar, but would not have been able to place it.

**

Big, dark eyes peered out from a darker hallway, looking furtively from side to side, watchful of pursuit. After a moment, a face emerged cautiously from this shadowed passage, round and framed by once beautiful, well kempt hair, the same exact shade as her eyes. She was Clara, The Impossible Girl, which was good, because she was about to do the impossible.

She slunk along the hallway, keeping her back against the wall, trying to make the most out of the uncertain light. She stepped cautiously, placing her bare feet gently on the ground. After several minutes of this sneaking, she came to the door she was looking for, the room where she had seen the guards throw all of her and the Doctor's belongings.

She held up her wrist, presenting the guard's wristband for identification; holding her breath, hoping that the door would open. Then she heard a slight click and the door slid upward into the ceiling. During the initial escape from her cell she had had to knock out a guard… or two. She had been observant enough to notice the guard's strange ritual, and connect it to the opening mechanisms on the doors.

She entered the room, expecting to find a small storage closet; the space that greeted her was more of a small warehouse. Apparently the aliens this ship belonged to were something of hoarders. She scanned the room, looking right to left and front to back, trying to determine where her things were.

From the look of the items, she determined that her stuff was probably in the front most row and likely the rightmost column. She walked over to one of the wide, meter high baskets and looked inside; it would take far too long to search all of the items. She snapped her fingers twice and heard a clicking sound repeated twice in the bin directly next to hers. She walked over to the bin and clicked her fingers again, this time she saw the brief flash of light buried under a couple layers of junk. She sifted through the pile until she found what she was looking for: her clothes and both the Doctor and her sonic screwdrivers. She quickly changed into her clothing and clipped both sonics onto her belt next to her holster. She held the guard's gun loosely in one hand; her own weapon had not been put in the bin with the rest of her things.

When she had first met the Doctor, he was so against weapons of any kind, especially anything lethal; especially guns. Then the World Devourers had come, and now he was gone. Now her entire universe was gone. Only she remained, and that was thanks to the Doctor's last act of providence. She had escaped here to warn this universe's Doctor of the impending attack, and she had, and then she had watched as the unthinkable happened, again. These nobody aliens had taken them both by surprise, and killed the Doctor. She had seen him regenerate, his alien cells renewing themselves; his body and face changing and becoming someone else. But something had gone wrong, the process was interrupted, and when all was said and done he had lain there, unresponsive, on the ground. Now she wasn't sure if he was alive or dead, but she was going to find out; and she was certain that if she saw the Doctor, whatever he may look like now, she would recognize him.

After the Doctor's failed regeneration, the guards had taken his body away just like they did with all the others. Clara wasn't sure where they took the bodies, or what they did with them, but she was sure that if the Doctor was alive, then he had escaped, and would probably have needed a place to rest and recover from his regeneration. Once she was free of this prison she would go and search for nearby cities. And that left her with one immediate problem: escape.

Clara cautiously peered out of the room, and once she was certain that there was no one around, she left. She walked down the hallways a bit more confidently, now that she had her own clothes and her own sonic screwdriver. As she approached a turn in the hallway she heard voices, she stopped in her tracks and pressed her back against the wall. As she listened, she heard the footsteps and voices drawing nearer to her position. She held her breath and closed her eyes, bringing up her gun. It was unlikely these aliens wouldn't notice her.

The three aliens stepped in her line of sight, talking casually, like there was nothing out of the ordinary, like they were normal people, just chatting. For a moment Clara thought that they wouldn't notice her, but then one of the fish faces started turning towards her. Its eyes widened slightly as it noticed her. She pulled the trigger three times, three flashes of laser light burst out of the gun, and three aliens dropped to the ground. She walked over to them, checking to make sure they were down, and then pulling them into the small side hallway she had been standing in. It would probably at least buy her some time before they were discovered and the alarm was sounded. Just in case it didn't, she picked up her pace.

She hurried through the hallways at a jog, struggling to remember just which routes they had originally used when they led her to her cell. But beyond that, all she knew was that she was underground and that the ship was large, larger than most buildings. When her memories failed her, she just continued on in a general upward direction. When she encountered anyone, she shot first and decided to ask questions later.

At the end of one hallway stood a tall, metal door, even more sturdy looking than the others aboard the ship. It obviously had several extra locking mechanisms and safety precautions. Clara recognized it from her first trip through the door; this was her final obstacle to the outside world. She flashed her bracelet, fairly certain that it wouldn't work. She was right, it didn't, so instead she took out her sonic screwdriver and set about unlocking the door. The locks were tricky, and even after several agonizing seconds the door still wasn't open.

A siren blared throughout the ship, and the warning lights flashed a continuous, urgent maroon. Moments later she heard the sound of footsteps echoing throughout the hallway and knew that she had seconds left. She looked at the door, knowing that she didn't have time to undo its intricate locks. She pulled out her gun and shot the door's locks. Puffs of smoke rose from the circuitry and the door lay ominously still. The footsteps grew nearer. She holstered her weapon and put her sonic to work on the door. The footsteps continued growing closer. The door opened within moments and she hurried through, closing the door behind her.

She found herself in a shallow cave, more of a niche in the hillside than anything. The door behind her was all but invisible to the casual observer. She hurried out of the cave, trying to use the large scattered rocks as stepping stones so that she wouldn't leave a trail. The moment she left the shelter of the cave's shadow she was assaulted by the unrelenting sun of a desert. She shaded her eyes and continued running.

Later, when she was a fairly safe distance from the ship, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She flipped through the menus and screens, navigating her way through the internet until she found a global positioning system (GPS). Consulting the program, she found that she was in the United States, and that the nearest city was Roswell, New Mexico.


	2. Missing

Carter Bennett Gage (commonly known as Gage) was a fairly normal college boy. He spent his time studying and doing homework, and programming in his free time. He was majoring in computer programming and it was something he loved to do. But other than school, he really didn't consider himself a successful person. He didn't have the social graces of his twin brother William (Will, for short). He didn't like parties, or crowded places, and was entirely oblivious to flirtation and romance. Whenever he opened his mouth unintelligible jargon came out. He was generally just a very socially awkward person. But he was good, very good, at programming. From his very first encounter with a computer he showed a talent for technology, and by the time he hit puberty he was already a prodigious hacker. So, at least there was that.

He sat at his computer, staring intently at the screen. The website for The Roswell Daily Record was open in front of him; the story was of a disappearance. The police weren't even certain that the man was even in danger, or missing, it looked like he had just dropped everything and left. There were no signs of a struggle, or fowl play. He had just simply disappeared. This was the fifth case in as many weeks, and Gage suspected that there were more.

All of the missing people were ones who would not be missed: people new to the area without friends or family nearby, or recluses, or just people that no one liked and secretly hoped would go away. Except for this last one, he had been going on vacation, and just never returned. He did have family in the area, and they were quite concerned about him; that was the only reason it hadn't been buried under a mountain of other news like the others had. But even his family wasn't certain that he hadn't just left on his own; he had seemed like the type to do so.

Then there was the decreasing number of homeless. Gage was sure of it. There were fewer beggars on the street and fewer homeless sitting under bridges and in alleyways. He was the type to notice such things, just like he had noticed the decrease in crime (which he guessed meant there was also a decrease in criminals). Roswell was the 5th biggest city in New Mexico; Gage wondered how many people could go missing before people started to notice, especially when the people going missing were usually undesirables. He wasn't sure that anyone would even care, not until one of their own disappeared, like this latest man.

Gage was certain that there was something going on, that someone was behind this, and whoever it was knew exactly who to pick so as not to raise alarms, except for this last one. They had made a mistake. Were they becoming desperate? Were they devolving? Or was it a mistake at all? No one was panicking. Even the story of his disappearance hadn't made the front page of the news.

No, the leading story was something about a mysterious blue box. Apparently it was an antique police box, straight out of 20th century England, and despite everyone's best efforts, no one had been able to enter or even open it. So in the end, since it wasn't hurting or inconveniencing anyone and was probably just a prank anyway, they decided to leave it in the alley where it was found and try to ignore it. Officials figured that the pranksters would likely collect it once people stopped paying attention to it.

Gage shook his head in annoyance. Roswell was already the laughing stock of the entire United States, and the people seemed content to keep it that way. Long before Gage had been born, rumors of aliens visiting Roswell had spread. Now the city relished in its embarrassing reputation of extraterrestrial encounters and government conspiracies, it even held a yearly alien festival. On the plus side, tourism had always been a fairly reliable source of income. Apparently people the world over wanted to meet a real, live alien.

Gage's friend Peter Ness was one of these people. He was even majoring in astronomy, which, Gage suspected, was just an excuse to spend countless nights looking at the sky through a telescope and writing things down (looking for signs of alien life). Gage wasn't interested in aliens, he figured that they probably existed, but on some distant world, and that even if they were aware of earth, they wouldn't want to waste their time with such a boring place. And even if they did, Gage was certain that he never wanted to meet one.

Peter was the same age as Gage and Will, twenty-one, give or take a few months, and even though he was eccentric and quite geeky he was still a hit with the ladies (Gage figured it was his British accent, apparently women love it).

They were all in different stages in their college careers. Gage was getting ready to graduate, with only a few credits, and a fewer number of months left. Peter was perfectly on track to graduate in a year. And Will was slightly behind, still a sophomore. It wasn't due to failed classes or lack of intelligence that Will was behind, he just simply didn't know what he wanted to do with his life and was continuously switching majors. By his third year in college he had tried no less than five different majors, and they were each in different colleges, encompassing entirely different fields of study. He was growing rather frustrated with school and was considering leaving altogether.

Carter Bennett Gage and William Bennett Gage, twins though they were, shared very little in common. Their appearance was one of these things: both of them had the same face, hazel eyes, and brown hair. The only difference was that Gage's hair was always messy looking and left down, brushing the top of his eyebrows, and Will kept his hair up in a neat, spiky style. But, other than their appearance, they really did have very little in common.

Carter, from a very young age, decided that he really didn't like his first or middle name and insisted on being called Gage. While William liked his own name but disliked the name Gage, and only consented to his name being shortened after everyone had decided to call him Will anyway, despite his protests. Neither of them particularly liked the name Bennett. Gage, who was slightly younger (by minutes), was the more focused of the two and already knew what he wanted to do with his life, more or less. He was also not as athletic or socially competent as Will, who was every bit as intelligent as Gage, but lacked any clear purpose or passion. Oddly, it was Peter that had more in common with Gage, both of them being obsessive and driven in their pursuits, and more than just a little eccentric. At least Peter could hold a conversation without it devolving into strange mumbling, usually.

Whenever Gage thought about Will or Peter, or anyone else really, he couldn't help but compare himself to them. He knew it was a bad habit, and he tried to forcibly pull himself back each time he caught his thoughts wandering into that unwinnable territory. He forced his attention back to the computer and the notes he had written about the disappearances. Before he could get back into his work he was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

Answering the door, Gage was met with the peculiar sight of Shui Ruan Jin, his brother's closest friend. His parents had come to the United States (along with his grandmother) before Shui had even been born. Now he was twenty-three years old, had recently received a degree in fine art, and was a well paid, well respected tattoo artist. He was a very strange sight: one hoop pierced his lip; one silver stud was set beside his eye and another just lower than that; he also had one black stud set in each ear; and a strange black, clip-like piercing wrapped over the very edge of one ear. He had several well placed, elegant tattoos drawn onto his skin. And his hair, which was of average length near his head, had been grown into very long bangs, which had then been swept to one side, partly covering one eye and some of his face.

Other than looking very strange, Shui also claimed to have a very unusual name. He said that his name included a strangely placed 'Jin', which was supposed to be a personal name, but had been conjugated with Ruan into his surname (Ruan being a normal family name). Apparently there was even a story behind it, but Gage had never been interested enough to ask. And there he was, standing in the hallway, wearing his usual style of black and white clothing, carefully selected and arranged to show as much of his tattoos as possible.

"Shui, what are you doing here?" Gage asked, surprised.

Shui looked at him curiously, raising an eyebrow, and continued looking at him exactly like that until realization dawned on Gage.

"Oh right, Jin," Gage said, remembering that he preferred being called Jin. "So… what do you want?"

"A client asked for a tattoo of an authentic replica of an X4 computer chip, can I borrow one of your books?" he asked.

"Oh, uhm, sure," Gage replied, going to his desk and finding an old book filled with pictures and descriptions of the inner workings of computers. He gave the book to Jin.

"Thanks," Jin said.

"Uh, no problem..." Gage said, expecting Jin to leave, when he didn't Gage asked "was there something else?"

"Hmm...? No," Jin said, turning to leave. He seemed more distracted than usual.

"If you wanted a reference, you could have just looked up a picture of the chip online," Gage said, trying to coax out the real reason behind Jin's visit.

"Yes, I suppose so…" Jin replied.

And they stayed there like that for several moments, Jin standing half inside, half outside the room while Gage tapped his foot in frustration, pushing up his glasses.

"There's something going on," Jin finally admitted. "And it may be serious."

"What happened?" Gage asked.

"A close friend is missing," Jin said. "It hasn't been 24 hours yet so the police haven't even started looking. And then, when I tried to find clues where she might have gone, I didn't find anything. Not the slightest indication that she was taken against her will. But I can't shake this bad feeling that I have, I'm sure that something has happened to her."

A cold ripple went down Gage's spine. It sounded just like the other cases, but so soon? Gage felt like there was an ominous cloud creeping closer, and all he could hear was the distant sound of thunder. But, he had to be certain.

"How do you know that something didn't come up?" Gage asked. "If it was important enough she may have just left in a hurry."

Gage sat on the chair beside his computer desk, and Jin entered the room, closing the door behind him.

"She isn't the type to do that," Jin replied, shaking his head. "Besides, she would not have left this behind" he held up a small, ornate hairclip shaped like a crescent moon. "It is very important to her."

"What do you expect me to do?" Gage asked, thinking of the enormity of the task. He couldn't find her, it was impossible; and he couldn't help but think that Will would be a better choice for this. Will would be busting down doors, putting up fliers, demanding that the police look into it. Gage didn't even know where to begin.

"I don't know," Jin finally admitted. He stood in the middle of the room, his hands clenched and his eyes downcast; his frustration was palpable.

"What's her name?" Gage asked, feeling like he had to do something, and the very beginnings of a plan were just starting to work their way into his head.

"Natsuko Mori," Jin replied instantly. "And here, this is her picture," he took out his phone, found Natsuko's photo, and showed it to Gage.

Gage took the phone, and then pulled out one of a multitude of cables from the desk drawer. He connected Jin's phone to the computer and downloaded the picture. Then, he started typing furiously into the computer until two different programs were running simultaneously. To Jin, the words and images were meaningless, passing by too quickly to see.

"What are you doing?" Jin asked, staring intently at the screen, trying to make sense of the endless jumble.

"I'm simultaneously running a facial recognition program and a database search," Gage replied, then, seeing the confused look on Jin's face, he elaborated. "The program on the left is going through the city's video footage and comparing the faces to Natsuko's. I programmed it to search all the video feeds since yesterday, and it'll probably take awhile. The one on the right is going through the city's records, tracking her credit card uses, and trying to find a paper trail."

Jin raised one eyebrow in amazement. "Is that even legal?" he asked.

Gage didn't respond. Instead, he continued looking intently at the screen. Then there was a small *ding* and Gage turned towards the left, he started typing things in and when he found what he wanted, he pulled up the program, filling the screen.

"Wow, that took a lot less time than I was expecting," Gage said with some surprise.

"You found her?!" Jin asked, kneeling beside Gage and trying to see what he had.

"Yeah, this camera picked her up outside a convenience store late last night," Gage said, playing the recording. "It was time stamped at two in the morning. What was she doing out so late?"

"She's getting her Master's degree in chemistry, she often stays late at the university," Jin explained, then pointed at the girl exiting the convenience store with a soda and a bag of chips. "It looks like she was on her way home"

Natsuko took a sip of the soda and turned left, walking off camera.

"She lives in an apartment just off campus, and doesn't own a car," Jin explained, the tension coming through in his voice.

"I'll try to find the nearest camera," Gage said, typing commands into the computer. "There, got it. This video is from a bank, they have a 24-hour surveillance system. She walked right by it, and it looks like the feed picks up right after she left the convenience store."

The video showed the girl walking across the street from the bank, barely in the camera's line of sight. She dropped something and bent down to pick it up. Then three masked men jumped out of the alley behind her and whisked her away, kicking and screaming (or so they presumed, as the video feed didn't have sound). A nondescript black car pulled up beside them and the three men climbed in, throwing Natsuko into the trunk.

"She really was kidnapped," Jin stated, amazed and horrified at the development. "But her family isn't rich, she doesn't have any money or property, so what do they want with her?"

"I don't know," Gage admitted, also stunned. "But I don't think she was their first victim. I was just looking into a theory about that when you arrived."

"More people are missing?" Jin asked, "But there hasn't been anything about kidnappings in the news."

"Whoever's doing this is careful, always taking people that won't be missed and leaving no trace of fowl play. Well, until yesterday. Two people in one day, both of which have friends or family in the area. They've changed their MO, their mode of operation, and they made a mistake. Now we have proof of what's going on," Gage said.

"I have to send this video to the police, they have to know what's going on," Gage muttered to himself. "Even if I send it anonymously they won't be able to ignore it."

"Gage, look," Jin said, pointing at the screen. "Pause the video."

Gage paused it, looking closely at the space where Jin was pointing. "A witness," he said, his voice almost a whisper.

"We have to find her," Jin said. "She saw everything."

"Yes," Gage said. "And she may be in danger."

The video was paused just after the kidnapping, the picture was still and dark. At the very top of the image, a white haired girl was peeking out of an alleyway, almost invisible in the grainy footage.


	3. Looking for a Friend

It was daytime now, and the girl was still walking around aimlessly. Even though she had been on her feet for hours, she wasn't tired at all. She had even taken to playing on the city's railroad. She moved on one of the metal rails, walking, then skipping, then spinning, in a strange sort of dance. Her arms were waving in the air beside her, doing their own little dance, switching between helping her keep her balance and moving around in complicated shapes. She was still humming odd tunes.

"What a strange game," she said to herself. "Playing with strangers in black masks and screaming 'please don't take me'. What a violent game, with cars and kicking and grabbing and biting. Or… is it a game at all? But if it isn't a game, then what is it?"

"Hmm… I guess I'll just have to find out," she said, turning in place.

She started walking along one of the metal tracks, still humming to herself, and occasionally hopping on one foot.

**

Using Gage's computer skills, and a bit of detective footwork, Jin and Gage had tracked down the mysterious white haired girl to the railroad. They found a homeless man sitting in a railcar abandoned beside the tracks.

"Oh that girl," he said, after being given a description. "What a weird one, she was."

"Um, you saw her, here? Where did she go?" Gage asked.

"Oh, I'd stay away from that one if I were you," the man said. "Skipping around and dancing on the tracks, humming that strange song, talking to herself. She wasn't in her right mind I tell ya, and those loons are bad news."

"Right, now did you actually see where she went?" Jin interrupted the man before he could continue on his tangent.

"Yeah, yeah, she started walking off in that direction, following the tracks," the man said, pointing southwest, away from Roswell. The tracks were already at the outskirts of the city, and following that direction would take them into the middle of the desert before long, to an area devoid of even simple dirt roads.

"Thank you" Gage and Jin said, turning to leave.

"Ahem" the man cleared his throat pointedly.

"Um, yes?" Gage said in confusion.

The man held out his hand expectantly. Jin gave him a five dollar bill that was in his wallet, he was so hurried and distracted that the bill could have been a fifty and he wouldn't have even noticed.

"So what do we do now?" Gage asked.

"Go after her," Jin replied.

"But how?" Gage asked. "There aren't any roads and going on foot we'd never catch up to her."

"We could rent a dune buggy," Jin suggested, it seemed like the only option.

Dune buggies were meant for riding off roads, they usually housed two to four people; had large, sturdy tires; and were built in the style of an open, metal cage, without doors or windows. They were perfect for casual fun on the sand, but not very practical otherwise.

"Yes, if we can find one available," Gage said. "But with this weather they may all be taken."

There was a moment of silence between the two as they thought about the possibility, and then as their minds drifted to other matters.

"I didn't even know Roswell had a railroad," Jin said.

Gage looked up sharply at Jin, and then both of their heads slowly turned towards the suspicious tracks. Gage had lived in Roswell his entire life and he had never heard the sounds of trains, or even anyone talking about them.

"Something very strange is going on," Gage said, at last. "I'm going to call Will and Peter, I get the feeling we may need backup."

"I already texted them," Jin said. "They're on their way."

**

In the end there were exactly two dune buggies available at the final dune buggy rental shop they visited. The first was a slightly rickety two-seater, and the second was an odd three-seater, which originally had four seats, but one of them had completely been destroyed by some mixture of age, elements, and an old collision. The four young men scraped together enough money to rent the two buggies, even though Peter had offered to pay the full amount (he came from a wealthy family and secretly felt a bit guilty, especially since it wouldn't burden him at all).

Before they set out after the strange white haired girl, Will decided it would be a good idea to stock up on water and snacks, and Jin thought he should fully explain the situation to Will and Peter. So while Jin explained, Gage was sent to get provisions.

He paid the clerk and took the bag of items. It was times like these that made him appreciate his part-time job. The web design job paid well and took up little time, it was perfect for him, and because of it he had spending money. Because of his talent and tireless dedication to his schoolwork, he had also gotten a full-ride scholarship, which was a great relief to him. He saw how his brother struggled to balance his schoolwork and job, saving money for tuition and always worrying about his finances; he didn't envy his twin's position, but whenever Gage offered to help, Will refused.

Just as Gage left the convenience store, the plastic bag tore open, its contents spilling onto the ground. Gage cursed the cheap, paper thin plastic and hurriedly picked them back up, balancing them all in his arms and weighing his options. The convenience store Gage had gone to was just around the corner from the buggy rental place, so it wasn't a far walk; Gage believed he could manage it. He set off at a brisk pace, making certain not to go too fast so as not to risk dropping everything again.

He had just come to the corner of the building when he tripped over a rock and stumbled; the bag of chips Peter asked for flew out of his hands and fell to the ground. Gage carefully bent down to pick it up, and as he straightened, his eyes connected with a man sitting outside a coffee shop across the street, newspaper held open in front of him with a coffee cup in his other hand. Something about the man unsettled Gage, but he didn't know what; maybe it was just the strangeness of him. He was older, perhaps in his late fifties or sixties, with steel grey hair, piercing eyes, and severe eyebrows. The man was wearing a dark outfit, with a dark blue jacket covering a similarly colored vest, over a white, pressed shirt, buttoned to his throat, the very ends of this shirt were visible at his hands; a slight movement and Gage caught a glimpse of a bright green accent sewn on the inside of the jacket; his pants were the same dark blue as the jacket, and were oddly matched with a shiny pair of black boots. Then the moment passed, the man turned to put his coffee down, and Gage went on his way.

When Gage got back to his friends, they were already on the dune buggies, checking them out to make certain they worked. Once everything had been handed out, they all got on the buggies and set off. Gage was with Peter, who had insisted on driving, which really made Gage nervous. Jin and Will were on the second buggy, the rickety two-seater, with Will behind the wheel. They followed the tracks into the desert, the afternoon sun beating down on them, the end of a mystery was drawing near… or perhaps it was the beginning of a new mystery.

**

Clara stood in the middle of downtown Roswell, she had been walking around the city in hopes of finding the Doctor, or clues to where he might have gone. Finally, covered in dirt, half starved, and without money, she decided to do something about her situation. She approached the nearest banking terminal and pointed her sonic screwdriver at it, instantly hacking the device and causing it to spew out money. She wasn't very familiar with American money, so she just stuffed as much into her pockets as she could. Within the space of an hour she had rented a hotel room, showered, and was wearing a newly purchased outfit. And once she was fully refreshed, she set about solving the problem with a new, rejuvenated mind.

Her first problem: the location of the Tardis. As she and the Doctor were taken by the aliens, the Doctor had initiated the Tardis's emergency relocation program. So it was missing, and could be anywhere in time and space (though Clara believed it would return to the general location of the Doctor, so it should be in the area, or at least the decade- it being a time machine and all). If she found the Tardis, it was likely she would find the Doctor, and that was her main concern.

The Doctor was missing, gone, possibly dead, and Clara had no idea what he looked like now. Sure, she thought she would recognize him if she met him, but there were no guarantees, and not being able to recognize him on sight was a significant disadvantage. And lastly there were the homicidal aliens, kidnapping and experimenting on people. Clara didn't know what they were trying to do, what their purpose was, and she didn't care, she was going to stop them however noble their cause.

After going over her list of problems, her priority still hadn't changed. The first thing she needed to do was find the Doctor, or the Tardis, and to do that she needed to think like him. And no matter how different he was, some things about him never changed. Clara went to the hotel's computer lounge/café, where there were several computers set up for the guests' use. She ran her hotel key card through the computer's scanner, which verified that she was a guest at the hotel and then unlocked the computer, allowing her to log in. It was definitely a nifty little invention, Clara had never seen one before, and she probably would have been lost if not for the laminated instruction sheet taped to the desk beside her.

Once Clara was logged into the computer, she noticed the icon labeled "Roswell News," and opened it up. Just what she was looking for: if the Doctor was anywhere, it would be where there was trouble.

She scrolled through the various titles, looking for something mysterious, possibly inexplicable, and most likely dangerous. And then she saw something that made even her stop in bewilderment, a title that was certainly mysterious, and quite possibly inexplicable, but was admittedly not very likely to be dangerous: "Mysterious Blue Box Found in Alley". They couldn't mean the Tardis, could they? She opened up the page. They did mean the Tardis. But how? No one ever noticed the Tardis.

The Tardis (short for Time and Relative Dimension in Space), looked like a blue police box, it was the exact size, shape and color, with a few minor discrepancies. It was also bigger on the inside, a lot bigger. It was the Doctor's time machine, basically an antique piece of his people's technology; the Time Lords of Gallifrey had been using these advanced ships to travel throughout time and space for most of their existence, and the Doctor's Tardis was an older model.

Even though the Tardis looked like a big, blue box, people still passed by it all the time without giving it a second though, but there it was, on the news. At least that solved one of Clara's problems, now she just had to find the Doctor, and stop the aliens.

As she searched the news stories, she realized there were two common threads: disappearances and amnesia. The former were buried under all the other news, and no one was sure if any of the people were actually missing. The latter was treated more like a good humored joke than a serious issue: people reporting being abducted by aliens, having blurry memories, being forgetful, or all of the three, and there were even a few cases of total amnesia. But the journalist took it in stride, writing: "It's alien season again here in Roswell. That's right, those pesky aliens have returned and are causing problems for Roswell citizens. What's their theme this time? Apparently memory loss. So, remember to wear your medical bracelets at all times to avoid unnecessary health complications, or go and visit a nearby tattooist, so that even if you forget who you are, you'll still know what's really important."

The next article was about a supposed zombie sighting at a local bakery, though apparently the 'zombie' was only interested in the desserts and not human flesh, which the journalist thought was somewhat of a relief.

Clara took down some of the names of victims in the memory loss/ missing person cases and left the hotel's very trendy cyber café. As she was leaving the hotel, her shoulder collided with a passerby, unbalancing them both; Clara dropped the notebook she was holding.

"Sorry," Clara said, picking up her notebook from the floor. "I wasn't really watching where I was going."

"No trouble," the man said, helping her up by the elbow.

At the sound of the man's voice, Clara looked up. Her lungs stopped breathing for a second. She knew that voice.

"Doctor," she whispered.

"No, really, you didn't bump into me that hard," the Doctor said.

"No, you're the Doctor," Clara said.

"Oh really, I am?" he asked. "I'm afraid my mind's a bit fuzzy at the moment, and I don't remember. But you do look familiar. Shh, don't tell me, I've got it. You're Cassie…. Clary…. No, Amy. You're Amy, am I right? Probably."

"No," Clara said. "It's me, Clara. My name's Clara. Clara Oswald. Remember?"

"Afraid not," the Doctor said.

Clara just looked at him, he may not remember her, but she remembered him. He was dressed in his same old clothes: old fashion with a vest, jacket, and button up shirt, with those silly boots of his. And he looked the same, with that intense look on his face and those piercing eyes, and that steely hair. He even talked the same, his voice was like it always was, not a note out of place. Clara couldn't help herself, she threw her arms around the man that she called Doctor, and was even close to tears.

"Doctor, I'm so glad you're alright. I thought you were dead," she said.

"What, really? Why?" he asked.

"Because," Clara began, but stopped, not knowing how to put it. "Those things, they just came out of nowhere… and you were hurt badly, and then you just disappeared. I thought you might have died."

"I'm sure it takes more than 'things' to stop me," he replied.

Same, cocky Doctor, Clara thought to herself, dislodging from the Doctor so she could look him over.

"You're sure you're alright?" she asked him.

"Besides the fact that I don't remember anything, yes."

"Good, because we have to find out what those things are and what they want," Clara said. "We have to stop them from hurting anyone else, and somehow we have get your memory back."

"Alright then, how do we do that?" he asked.

"Not a clue," she responded.


	4. Down by the Railroad Tracks

The four boys had been driving for over thirty minutes and were starting to get anxious. Their old, used, dune buggies puttered along, going well below the top speed of an average buggy. But still, how far could one girl walk? Sure, she had a head start of a few hours, but still, they felt that they should have at least seen her by then.

More time passed and they wondered how far into the desert they would have to go, or if their path would ever end.

Then they saw the end of the tracks. Far up ahead the tracks simply stopped, right in the middle of the desert, with nothing around for miles, they just ended.

"They could be under construction" Will offered, his voice barely audible over the puttering of the buggies and the whistling of the wind.

"That would explain why no one remembers trains in Roswell," Jin added.

"But it doesn't explain why that girl would be out here, following the tracks," Will said.

"Why don't we ask her" Peter said, pointing up ahead. "Look, she's right up ahead."

"We found her," Gage said, looking at the small figure sitting at the edge of the tracks.

**

The girl was starting to remember something, a vague hint of memory lapping at her consciousness, until it became like the ocean and swallowed her whole. The single, fuzzy memory came down on her like a tsunami and she couldn't pull herself to safety.

There was a man, an older man with steel hair and piercing eyes; and he was lying on the floor, in pain. He was reaching out to the girl, his hand stretching upward in a gesture that was somewhere between reaching for help and pushing away. Hands reached back and took his; it was the girl, she was trying to comfort the man.

"No, no!" the man exclaimed. "Don't touch me…"

But then there was a bright, bright light, and the memory went dark. And that's when she heard the puttering sound of two vehicles approaching. The girl half turned to get a look at the newcomers, then, when she had seen them, she turned back towards the desert, disinterested.

**

The two buggies stopped a safe distance back from the girl, and the four men exited.

"Uhmm, excuse me," Gage called to the girl from his spot beside the buggy, careful not to frighten her, even though she didn't appear even mildly afraid.

"Yes?" the girl called back.

"We're here because you witnessed a kidnapping," Gage explained. "And we need to know what you saw."

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

"Please, it would be a big help," Gage pressed. "It happened last night. We saw you on the security camera. You were standing in an alley, you saw the three men abducting a woman and putting her into a car…?"

"The girl who was playing the strange game with the men who weren't men," the girl replied, cryptically.

"It wasn't a game," Jin said, barely controlling his frustration, he took a deep breath and continued. "That woman is missing. Those were bad men that took her, against her will."

"I thought it seemed like a strange game," she admitted.

The four boys just looked at one another, at a loss for words. Who was this girl? They wondered. She was strange beyond anything they'd ever encountered before, and growing up in Roswell, that was saying something.

This strangeness about her wasn't just in her personality either, her looks lent quite a bit to the impression: she looked about 20, but with an immature physique and young features that made her look more like a young teenager, but her dark, perceptive eyes missed nothing, and almost made her look like she was well into her thirties. Then there was her hair, it was a stark, shocking white, naturally falling into a tangled, unruly mess around her head. There was no evidence that her hair was dyed that color, it looked like it was just naturally that albino white, even though she had no trace of freckles or sunburn that would accompany such a condition (it being the desert and all, sunburn was nearly guaranteed).

And besides her personality and physical features, there was also the matter of her clothes: she was barefoot and wearing a white, painfully simple nightgown, like she'd escaped from a hospital. The hot ground must have been burning her feet, but she didn't seem to mind, or even notice.

"Who are you, may I ask?" Peter questioned the girl.

"I don't know," she replied with a shrug.

"What do you mean you don't know?" Will asked, though it sounded more like an accusation.

"I mean I don't know," she said, standing in front of them, her feet tapping out an imaginary tune, her hands held together behind her back.

"Well, can you at least tell us your name?" Peter asked, gently.

"I don't know that either," she replied again, but this time she elaborated. "It's not like I'm doing this on purpose, you know. I just honestly don't know who I am. I woke up last night in an alleyway, dressed like this, no memory who I was. And I still don't know."

Gage held up a hand; anyone who didn't know him would think that he was motioning everyone to be quiet, but in reality that was just the gesture he made when a thought suddenly occurred to him and he was in the middle of thinking.

"The amnesia cases!" he exclaimed.

"What?" Jin asked.

"They've been in the news," Peter added. "Buried, but still in the news."

"I'm surprised you read them," Will said to Gage. "They were under the 'Humor' column."

"Ha, ha, funny. Are you trying to say I don't have a sense of humor?" Gage asked, then shook his head, saying. "Never mind", and started explaining. "Lately there have been reports of people being 'abducted by aliens', or just going missing, and when they return they have pieces, or sometimes their entire memory, missing. I didn't really pay attention to it, because I thought it was just the usual Roswell tourist advertisement. Idiot," he said, tapping himself on the forehead. "I should have made the connection."

"What connection?" Will asked. "What's going on?"

"People have been going missing," Jin explained. "It's been in the news, though buried because no one seems to know if they just left on their own or if they were taken, and there's no evidence of the latter. And there have also been cases of people returning after periods of time, but with memory loss."

"Exactly," Gage said. "Until this week the perpetrators have never made a mistake and their victims were ones that wouldn't be missed. I should have connected the amnesia cases to the missing people."

"There's still nothing to connect them," Will pointed out.

"Yes, there is," Gage said.

"No one took it seriously. The people they targeted wouldn't be believed, just like the people that went missing wouldn't be missed," Jin said, realizing the connection Gage had made.

"So there are aliens at work here, I knew it!" Peter exclaimed, a bit too happily, considering the subject.

"We don't know that," Gage said.

"But who else could it be?" Peter asked.

"I'm with the strawberry blond on this one," the girl joined in. "It's definitely aliens."

"Uhmm, excuse me?" Gage said, perplexed.

The girl looked at him blankly, then, recognizing his incomprehension, she explained, "Who else could have done this?" she said, pointing at the ground where the tracks ended.

"The tracks aren't finished, so what?" Will asked.

"Tracks leading into the middle of nowhere?" Peter said, unconvinced. "And there are no signs of construction. It does look like they just end here for no good reason."

"But that's where you're wrong," the girl said. "They weren't built for no good reason, they don't end here, and they are finished."

The girl picked up a fist sized rock and threw it just past the point where the tracks ended, it landed on the ground with a hollow thud; the sound of a rock hitting an empty, metal container. The four boys just stared at the patch of ground with a dumfounded expression.

"It's… hollow…?" Gage said, walking to the end of the tracks, trying to get a closer look at the mysterious ground.

"It's like a… hatch… or something," Peter said, speculating.

"Underground facility" the girl elaborated. "It has to have been built by aliens. Who else could build something like this? And it explains the disappearances. And the strange men."

"Well, depending on who you talk to, that could all be explained by the government," Peter said.

"Nope, not even close" the girl said, then she walked over to the end of the tracks, and continued walking past that. She walked forward, with one foot directly in front of the other and her arms held out like a tightrope walker's. Then she started jumping up and down. The ground clanked beneath her, decidedly metallic, and as she continued jumping the boys could make out the soft humming sound of electricity. Then they noticed that her feet were disappearing just slightly below the level of the ground.

"What is that?" Jin asked.

"Hologram covered hatch," the girl explained. "I can feel the metal under my feet, so the dirt and stuff isn't a cover or anything. Nope, straight up hologram. And as far as I know, no government has this kind of tech."

"So… aliens?" Will said, confronted with the actual, possibly substantiated reality, it was a bit daunting.

"Is that why you called the kidnappers 'men that weren't men'?" Gage asked the girl.

She nodded in response.

"How could you tell?" Gage asked.

The girl shrugged. "Don't know. They just didn't look like men to me."

Then the ground began to tremble, a sudden, violent quake that nearly knocked them over. The epicenter of this quake was a large circle in front of the tracks, at least thirty feet in diameter, all the dirt and rocks that had collected on the space were sent bouncing away from it. Jin was the first to realize what was happening.

"Get over here, quickly!" he called to the girl. "The hatch is opening."

The girl, who stood nearly in the middle of this circle, quickly started skipping backward, and as the hatch started to open she jumped to safety. Peter caught her, and then quickly the five of them retreated to the buggies and drove away as fast as the carts would allow. Somewhat hidden in the shade of a nearby hill, they watched as the hatch opened and a large machine flew out, hovering a couple meters above the train tracks, and heading towards Roswell.

"Were we seen?" the girl asked.

"I don't think so" Gage answered. "If we were then they probably would have come for us."

"Either that, or did they did see us, but didn't care," Jin added.

"So if they have machines that can fly, why did they waste time with railroad tracks?" Will asked.

"Didn't you notice how it was flying over the rails?" the girl asked, but continued without waiting for a reply. "The craft uses some kind of magnetic propulsion device. It would save them energy and fuel, and since they're only going between their ship and Roswell they don't have to worry about needing to change directions. It's practical."

"Their ship?" Jin asked, pointing at the hatch. "That's their ship down there?"

"Probably," she replied.

"We have to go back," Jin said. "That must be where they took Natsuko, she could still be there."

The girl was already shaking her head though. "No, it's impossible to enter through that hatch without one of their ships. They probably have another entrance, but we have no clue where it is, and it's likely well hidden."

"You know a lot about these aliens," Will said. "Especially for a normal, teenage girl."

"Well, I don't think I'm normal," the girl said. "I did wake up in an alley dressed like this, after all. And besides, I'm probably not a teenager either; the age just doesn't feel right."

"Before, didn't the aliens go into the city with a car?" Jin asked, thinking out loud.

"Yes, it was on the video. Unless that thing can turn into a car…?" Gage replied.

"No, it's too big," the girl said. "And it didn't have transformable pieces. The car must have been a smaller, more flexible model of the hovercraft we saw."

"So then, what are they going to do?" Will asked.

"They've abandoned even the pretense of blending in and not arousing suspicion," Gage said. "I don't like this."

"We should follow them," Jin said, and everyone agreed, climbing back into the buggies and following the distant craft at top speed.

Going as fast as they were, it would take the aliens less than ten minutes to get to the city. It had taken the boys forty minutes to get to the end of the tracks.

Sure enough, a few minutes later they saw the ship stop, by then it had become nothing more than a speck hovering in the sky. And then they saw something strange happen, something they couldn't explain. A purple cloud seemed to come down out of the ship, broken up by blue, pulsing waves reminiscent of electricity. Both of which came down on the city and then spread out in a far reaching wave; even Gage and the others were affected by it. A slight dusting of purple particles washed over them with slightly more force than the wind.


	5. When The Aliens Came

Earlier…

Clara was walking with the Doctor through Roswell, they were searching for the Tardis. Clara thought that maybe the Tardis's telepathic network could help restore his memories, or that it may have some other clue how to help them. The Doctor didn't even seem to remember the Tardis, and Clara didn't bother to explain, she figured that he would get his memories back soon enough. All she said was that the Tardis was his ship and that there may be something onboard that could help him.

That's when the alien craft appeared overhead. Clara recognized the technology: it was the same species taht had captured them before. She ducked into a nearby alley and dragged the Doctor along with her, or at least, she tried to, he wouldn't budge.

"Doctor, it's the aliens that I was telling you about," she said. "Come on, we have to hide. They're probably here for us, we can't be captured again."

"Oh, they're most certainly here for us," the Doctor said. "Or me, anyway. We've decided that you aren't useful anymore. You know too much, and none of it helps us."

Clara took an involuntary step back, horrified by the realization. This man wasn't the Doctor, he was one of the aliens impersonating him. He fooled her, and it was all because she had so desperately wanted the Doctor to be alive.

The 'Doctor' sprayed a substance in her face, catching her off guard; immediately she started feeling weak. Then the ship overhead spewed a thick purple cloud onto the city, accompanied by the rhythmic pulsations of an electromagnetic wave. Glass shattered, people screamed and ran, devices went dead, and then the people started dropping like flies.

Clara felt it in her lungs first, this tickling sensation that made her cough, and then the feeling spread to the rest of her body, settling in her skull. She pulled her sleeve over her mouth, but the poison had already entered her system. The world spun around her, her body felt heavy, and she dropped to her knees.

"I guess this Doctor of yours truly is dead. I have to admit, we weren't certain, not until we talked with you," the fake Doctor said. "And it looks like I won't be able to see this 'Tardis' machine of yours, but don't worry, we'll find it, and take it, along with anything else we want."

Clara dropped to the ground, her cheek resting on the hot ground below her, her hands by her sides.

"Nighty-night, Clara," he said.

**

"Cover your mouths, don't breathe it in!" the girl ordered.

They immediately did as she told, using their sleeves or insides of their shirts to shield the lower halves of their faces from the dangerous particles. After some time, when the particles had sufficiently dispersed, the girl uncovered her face, and the boys followed suit.

"What was that?" Peter asked.

"A combination of memory gas and an electromagnetic tech. wave," she explained.

"What does that even mean?" Will asked.

"Well, the memory gas erases recent memories (the length of which depends on the concentration of the gas), it also prevents the creation of new memories for a time, and makes people generally forgetful," she explained. "And the electromagnetic tech. wave is a specially designed electromagnetic wave that also hacks into all electronic devices after they've been knocked out, and can be programmed to do anything from erase files to granting the aliens remote access to the devices."

"Why? What's their endgame?" Gage asked.

"I don't know," the girl replied. "But I think we should find out."

"Isn't it a little suspicious that you just happen to know about all of their technology and tricks?" Peter said, more in a statement than a question. "It's obvious that they're aliens, but it seems equally obvious that you aren't what you seem. How do we know that you aren't one of these aliens too?"

"I don't know," the girl said. "I guess you'll just have to trust me for now, like I'm trusting you."

**

When they arrived in the city, they were surrounded by peaceful chaos, a kind of quiet, subdued confusion. All the streetlights (and electronics in general) were off. People milled about the streets, wandering aimlessly with glassy looks in their eyes. Somehow there wasn't mass rioting, possibly because one of the after affects of the memory gas was short term memory loss; so even if someone was thinking of doing something illegal, they forgot about it moments later before they could act on it.

Then there was the alien ship, still hovering overhead, occasionally picking up a random person.

"What do they want?" Will asked.

"Moreover, what are we doing here?" Gage asked.

"Yeah, it's not like we can stop an alien invasion," Peter said. "We should just go somewhere, barricade ourselves in, and hide."

Jin didn't say anything, he just made an annoyed tsk-ing sound, and looked back out at the city, away from the people in the buggies next to him.

"Maybe we can," the girl said, then explained. "Sure, they can kidnap people openly now, and will have more test subjects for whatever experiments they're doing, but it also looks like they're searching for something. Otherwise they would have just grabbed however many people they wanted and left."

"Then we just have to find whatever they're looking for before they do," Gage said. "And it might even hold the key to defeating them."

"But what could it be?" Peter asked. "If it was easy to find then they would have gotten it already, and we don't have a clue what they're after."

"Maybe…" the girl began. "Have you guys heard of anything appearing in the city? It would be something strange or unusual, not ordinary or commonplace; it wouldn't have been overtly alien or threatening. And it wouldn't cause panic, but it may arouse people's curiosity."

The four boys were thinking about this, trying to remember if they had seen or heard of anything that matched the description. For the most part they came up empty.

"What about that blue police box?" Gage said. "It just appeared out of nowhere in an alley, no one could open it, and they just decided to leave it there. People thought it was a prank."

They all looked at one another, thinking the same thing: could this really be what the aliens are after? A police box would seem innocuous enough, but maybe too innocuous. The idea bordered on the ridiculous.

"Do you remember where it was?" the girl asked.

Gage pursed his lips, trying to remember that tiny detail he had read earlier in the day, and had thought was inconsequential. Finally it came to him.

"Yeah, the alley it was found in is this way," he motioned, and then steered the buggy in that direction, the second buggy followed close behind.

As they drove further into town, the streets became more and more crowded with stalled cars and wandering people, making it increasingly difficult to maneuver around them, and eventually they just drove on the sidewalk, where there was less clutter. Then, after several minutes, they turned into an alley. A large, blue police box sat deep in the shadows, and a woman was lying in front of it, unconscious. From the state of her clothes, she must have dragged herself to the box, but finally succumbed to the gas before she could enter it.

The five of them got out of the buggies and went to the box and girl. Will checked the girl's pulse, confirming that she was still alive. Jin went to open the blue box, but found that the door was firmly shut. Gage stood a few feet away, looking ponderously at the box, trying to think of a way to open it. Peter stood just behind him, looking a little terrified, nervous at the idea that this was some alien device and they were trying to open it.

"Whoever she is, she dragged herself some distance to get to this box," the girl said, pointing to her clothes. "She wouldn't have done that if it wasn't important and she didn't have a way to get in."

Will checked the unconscious woman's pockets and pulled out everything he found: three toys and a few hair pins.

"Well, it was a good theory, but it looks like a bust," Will said. "All she had was this toy gun, some metal hair things, and these other two toy wands."

"Toys?" the girl said. "That doesn't make any sense."

Then the girl stepped forward and took the toy gun, aimed it at the police box, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, Will looked at her with an 'I told you so' kind of look. The girl felt around the gun until she found something that moved, and clicked into place. She aimed and fired again, this time a laser beam shot out of the gun and exploded against the blue box, which was completely unaffected by the blast.

"Safety," the girl said. "Even alien guns have them."

The four boys looked incredulously at the tiny, toy-like gun.

"That is definitely not earth technology," Jin noted.

"Does this mean that the woman's an alien?" Peter said, looking down at the unconscious woman on the floor.

"She doesn't look like one," Gage added, skeptical.

"She seems human enough to me," the girl said. "But maybe she's just a type of alien that looks human. Or she could actually be a human, and somehow got her hands on alien technology."

"So how do we open the box? And what's inside it?" Will asked.

"Maybe one of those wand-things is the key," the girl said.

The boys started walking around the box, trying to find a place where the key would fit. They even tried prying open the space where the phone went, but anticlimactically they just found a corded phone. The girl picked up one of the two wands and studied it, turning it over in her hand. She pointed the green crystal end at the blue box, and then she pressed a small button on the metal wand. The wand came to life, buzzing and humming like an electronic chorus, and the box's door opened, just a crack. The four boys stopped what they were doing, looking up in surprise.

"Remote control," she said with a shrug.


	6. The TARDIS

The five of them stood around the door, hesitating outside, no one wanting to be the one to open it, to look inside. And then the girl stepped forward and pushed, the door swung open and they all saw the impossible machine inside.

"What is that?"

"How can this be?"

"This is impossible."

"What is that thing?"

They each said, looking at the giant room inside, bigger by far than the box's exterior.

"It's real," Jin said after stepping into the room.

"It can't be," Gage said, going around the box's exterior, trying to figure out what the trick was.

"It's bigger on the inside!" Peter exclaimed.

"Or smaller on the outside," Will added. "I guess it depends on how you look at it."

They all walked in, Will carrying the unconscious woman, and they found themselves in a large, high-tech chamber, with a tall, cylindrical device in the middle that vaguely resembled some sort of control panel.

"There are more rooms!" Jin exclaimed, standing in a doorway, looking out at the hallway beyond.

"Be careful," Gage warned, "We don't know how big this thing is, or if there are any booby-traps."

Jin took one last look into the long hallway and turned back, returning to the group huddled around the control panel in the oddly large room.

"So, now that we've found the thing the aliens want, what do we do with it?" Peter asked.

"Don't let them take it," Gage replied. "And try to find out what it does."

"I bet this woman knows," Will added, motioning towards the unconscious woman.

"Well…" the girl began. "Maybe, maybe not, but definitely not anymore."

"The memory gas," Jin said in realization.

"Maybe there's something in here that can help her," Peter suggested.

"I don't like the idea of leaving this room and exploring this…." Gage began, but couldn't find the right noun.

"Ship…?" the girl said, filling in the blanks.

"You think that's what it is?" Gage asked, sounding weary, he took off his glasses and started wiping the lenses with a cloth from his pocket.

"Mmhmm," she replied, smiling happily. "And I'm going to check it out," she said, leaving the boys and walking through one of the doors. None of them followed her.

**

The girl walked down the hallways, passing doors and rooms, only occasionally looking inside. Whenever she did, oddly, she always found it was the same room: a luxurious bathroom dominated by one large bathtub at its center. Which wasn't at all what she needed, unless somehow the bathtub would help bring back the unconscious woman's memories; the girl seriously doubted this though. And the girl did wonder how she kept coming back to the same room, and hadn't even seen a single different one. She shrugged her shoulders and kept walking.

After her 22nd visit to the same room, the girl finally decided to go along with it. She walked into the tiled bathroom, and went up to the bathtub, finding that it was already filled with steaming water. She poked the surface of the water with one finger, curiously. Finding that it was just hot water, she decided it was safe to get in.

**

She continued her walk through the labyrinth of hallways, scrubbed clean, but back in her filthy nightgown. And this time, every door she opened led to the same room: an enormous wardrobe that seemed to go up forever, each level accessible via a spiraled staircase. She knew the game by now: go where the box wanted her to go, do whatever it wanted her to do, and she may just progress to her goal. So, she entered the enormous closet.

There were all kinds of clothes in the room, and all kinds of sizes. She saw a ridiculously long scarf, a question mark patterned vest, what looked like a clown outfit, some bowties, and even a fez. It was a bit overwhelming, and it would be impossible to choose anything, so she closed her eyes and threw her hands into a clothing rack, pulling things out at random. She looked down at the clothes in her hand, but before she could see what she had gotten, her hair fell in her face, blocking her vision. Now that her hair was washed, and wasn't stuck together in a mass of tangles and dirt, it kept falling into her eyes. And it was quite annoying. She couldn't see what was going on. So she reached into her pocket, found one of the woman's hairpins, and secured her bangs with the small metal piece. She figured that the woman wouldn't mind, especially if she didn't remember it.

Then she picked up the clothes from the floor where she had dropped them and held them up in front of her. Somehow she had managed to get all the right items and not leave anything out, so she tried them on. One shirt was a bright yellow button up, she threw it aside. The other shirt was tie-dyed with a mixture of pink, light yellow, beige, and lavender, with beige sleeves that were fitted near the top of the arm, but flared out near the cuffs. She tried this one on, finding that it had a very shallow scooped neck, so that it exposed the top of her shoulders, but went no lower than her collarbone. She decided to keep it. She also decided to keep the pair of tan-colored pants, which were very soft, and also flared out at the bottom.

When she went to leave the room, she found that the door was locked. She put her foot on the frame beside the door and pulled on the knob, but it didn't budge. Then she noticed the one part of her wardrobe that was missing, and picked up the nearest pair of shoes, a blue pair of flip-flops. When she tried the door again, it opened, and as she exited the room, she put on the sandals.

The next door she tried led her to an enormous library. She walked inside and started looking around for books on memory, toxins, and amnesia; preferably a book with all three. It wasn't long before she found one, and as she flipped through the pages, she located the toxin she was looking for, Violet Mnemos. She skimmed past symptoms, ingredients, and uses, until she found the recipe for an antitoxin. She committed the words to memory and closed the book, but just as she did so, something caught her eye. She reopened the book and read the list just below the antitoxin recipe; it was an abbreviated record of the aliens most likely to use the substance. She read the list of names, until one caught her eye Svinge'vat and just below that, the Asudine. She read over the list again, but it was still those two names that interested her, and she really didn't know why. So she shrugged, put the book back, and left the library.

The next room she entered had endless shelves filled with jars, containers, and cabinets. Now she was sure that the ship had a mind of its own, and that it was leading her by the hand; and she was sure that there was nothing she could do about it. So she picked up a multiply partitioned bowl near the front of the room and walked along the isles, opening cabinets, checking labels, and occasionally scooping out ingredients with the conveniently placed ladles sitting beside the various jars. When all of the ingredients had been collected, she walked to one corner of the room, where she had noticed a collection of laboratory equipment, and set to work making the antitoxin.

Some time later she left the room, stuffing seven separate vials filled with a strange, bright, orange liquid, into a brown messenger bag/purse she had picked up which seemed to be a lot bigger on the inside. Then she started walking down the hallways again, hoping that the ship knew what it was doing and led her back to the control room.


	7. Clara

She stepped into an open doorway, seeing the control room through the opening. But what she saw made her stop cold. She ducked back into the hallway, spinning around and pressing her back to the wall. She didn't even dare to breathe for a moment, straining her ears to hear what was happening.

"What about the girl?" a gurgling voice asked, surprisingly in English.

"Leave her, the extra dose of toxin she received will be fatal, she won't last a day," another voice said, also in English. "You two, stay here in the box with the girl. You two, come with me, we will bring this device back to our ship for study."

"What about that man, the alien? We haven't found him yet," one voice asked.

"We will let our superiors worry about him. As far as I'm concerned, our mission was a success and the alien is likely dead," the second one, the leader, answered.

The girl could hear some shuffling about, and then three pairs of footsteps leaving the ship, the door shutting behind them.

"What do you suppose they'll do with those boys we captured?" one of the guards asked the other.

"Probably experiment on 'em like the others," the other guard replied. "Pity too, that brunette was cute."

"Good enough to eat," the first one added, and they both laughed; it was a gargling sound, almost like someone drowning.

The girl let out her breath and silently cursed their stupidity. The ship had seen them after all, when they were on the tracks, in their buggies, and it had kept an eye on them. They had led the aliens straight to the box! And what's worse, they had left the door open for them. The thought made the girl freeze even more than she already was; she realized that one of the boys had left the door open, but which one? And had it been intentional, or an oversight? The latter seemed unlikely, as they all had known that there were hostile aliens hanging overhead, ready to capture or kill. So, did that mean that one of the boys was working with the aliens? Or, had one of them been replaced?

Suddenly, the girl remembered the first name on the list: Asudine; they were shape shifters. Had she recognized the signs of a shifted alien in one of the boys? Or had it been the technology? She didn't know, but something felt off, and she was certain that if she saw the aliens onboard the ship, it would all fall into place. But exposing herself was risky, they might see her, and she might get caught. Right now, she was the only one of the group that was free, so if she was captured, that would be the end of it.

She inched closer to the door way and peeked around the wall, cautiously looking into the control room. She saw them, two fish-faced aliens, with large black eyes, bright blue scales, gills, and delicate looking ruffles at the tops and sides of their heads. When they opened their mouths, the girl saw rows of long, sharp teeth, and black, viscous goo. The girl knew they were one of the aliens on the list, that they were the other name she recognized: the Svinge'vat. As she watched, one of the aliens pulled out a small cylinder from its belt and pushed the top of it, spraying itself with water. The girl recognized the device, it contained highly compressed water, and so it could store quite a bit of it. Just one of those cylinders could last for days. As the alien replaced the device, the girl saw the aliens' guns sitting in their holsters, looking like harmless toys. But she had seen what one of those could do, and she knew better. And then she noticed a third gun lying on the floor beneath the steps, likely lost in the struggle with the boys. They didn't seem to notice it, which was good, and it could even come in hand, if she could get to it.

She felt around her pockets and searched the inside of her satchel, looking for some way to get out of this situation. She found the wand device she had used to open the box, and wondered what else it could do; she doubted it was just a key. But the device looked complicated and tricky, with different buttons and no way to know what they all did. Then she remembered how easily she had opened the door, and then how the ship had maneuvered her to the different rooms; it was like they could read her mind, and maybe, just maybe, it could. If this technology had some kind of telepathic interface, that could explain everything. The ship didn't have to be sentient, and neither did the wand device, they could just be programmed to react to her thoughts and situation.

She really hoped that her theory was right. She peeked out of the doorway, barely exposing her face and hands, pointing the wand at one of the guards. Then she pressed a button and imagined what she wanted to happen as clearly as she could. The guard's gun started smoking. The other guard was the first to notice, and when the first guard noticed his smoking gun, he quickly reached to take it off, but found it was too hot to touch. He fiddled with the holster's clip on his belt. The girl pointed the wand and did the same to the other guard's gun, and he reacted much in the same way.

The girl used this distraction to creep out of hiding and make her way to the third gun, going as quickly and quietly as possible. She reached the gun, pointed it at the guards, and froze. With her finger on the trigger and an alien life in her sights, she found that she couldn't take that final plunge, even though they were threatening her life and the lives of everyone she knew, she couldn't do it, she couldn't pull the trigger.

The guards were still distracted, they had gotten their holsters off by now, but their guns were ablaze on the ground and they were trying to extinguish the flames. One of the guards was using his jacket, and the other was squirting the flames with his misting cylinder, thinking the condensed water would be enough. Neither was particularly effective. But that did give the girl an idea. She examined the gun, found the controls, and set the beam to a high intensity, narrow, non-lethal setting. Then she aimed her gun and shot.

One of the small, spherical devices attached to one of the guard's belts suddenly started gushing out purple smoke. The guards realized what was happening, but too late, they reached for the breathing filters on their belts, but forgot what they were doing and froze mid action. They stood there dumbly, looking out into space. The girl had guessed correctly, they were carrying smoke grenades, filled with the memory gas, which they were not immune to. As the smoke spread throughout the room, quickly closing in on the girl, she reached into her satchel and drank the liquid from one of the orange vials. The antidote should be effective for twelve hours, but even if it wasn't, it would do the trick for now.

All at once the ventilation system kicked in, as did the sprinklers. And a few minutes later the girl found herself alone in a soaking room, drenched to the skin.

She went over to the woman, still unconscious, and quickly gave her the antidote, trying to keep the two alien guards in her sight. She was pretty sure that they would be unconscious for hours, and be forgetful for much longer; considering the effects of the gas, it must have been very concentrated. But she still didn't want to take any unnecessary risks.

It took a few minutes, but eventually she had dragged both guards to a corner of the irregular room, placing them both halfway underneath a staircase and tying them up with their belts. When the girl had finished tying up the guards, she returned to the woman, and it was like magic, she was awake and up and fairly lucid.

"Whoa, are you alright?" the girl asked.

"Huh, who are you?" the woman responded. "And what are you doing in the Tardis?"

"Huh, Tardis?" the girl said, confused.

The woman motioned around, indicating the ship. Then she slowly got to her feet, glaring at the girl, but as she tried to stand, her legs wobbled so badly that she had to sit back down.

"That's the effects of the memory gas," the girl explained. "I gave you the antidote though, so you should be alright… and as for who I am, I don't really know, I still don' have any memories, even though I took the antidote I still haven't gotten them back. And for your other question: me and four guys found this box with you in front of it and opened it up with one of these wand things," the girl held up the device.

"The Doctor's sonic screwdriver!" the woman exclaimed, a blush of indignation starting to creep up her face.

"So anyway, these bad alien guys broke into the Tardis and kidnapped the guys I was with," the girl said. "And, I knocked two of 'em unconscious, they're over there," she pointed to them. "I used their memory gas on 'em, so they should be fairly useless for hours."

The woman looked back at the girl, the indignation falling away and being replaced with a reserved respect.

"I'm Clara," the woman introduced herself.

"Nice to meet 'cha," the girl said. "….So, um, who's this doctor you were talking about? Is he a friend?"

"Yes, he is. And, I don't know where he is, or even if he's okay," Clara responded.

"So you're looking for him?" the girl said. "Are you… aliens?"

"He is. I'm human," Clara answered. "This is his ship, a time machine called a Tardis, it's an acronym for Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

"Are you good guys?" the girl asked.

Clara laughed. "You could call us that, yes. We do fly around time and space helping people after all."

"Are you going to help us with these aliens?" the girl asked, handing Clara the sonic screwdrivers and gun she had with her.

"Yes, that was the plan. But then we got captured, and the Doctor got hurt. I escaped, and I've trying to find him ever since. And I thought I had found him, but it was one of those aliens, they looked like him, copied him right down to the boots, and I got knocked out again."

"What does he look like?" the girl asked. "Maybe I can find him, and then we can stop these aliens together."

Clara looked at the girl apologetically. "That's just it. I'm not sure what he looks like: whenever he's seriously injured his body regenerates, and he looks like a completely different person, different personality too, but same Doctor underneath it all."

"Then how do we know when we find him?" the girl asked. "I mean, if he was in the city when those aliens dropped that memory gas on it, then he won't remember anything, and he'll probably be confused too."

"They dropped memory gas on the city!" Clara exclaimed, not remembering; a touch of anger returned to her face. "Well, we'll set those aliens straight. They're not going to get away with this. As for the Doctor, all we have to do is scan him with one of the screwdrivers. Let me show you."

She managed to stand up, the gas's effects wearing off.

"But first… you should keep this," Clara said, handing the other screwdriver back to the girl, explaining. "This way we can both look for him."

The girl took the screwdriver, feeling a flush of pride in being entrusted with the device. Clara went to the control panel/ console in the middle of the room to continue her explanation.

"The Doctor's physiology is different than ours," Clara explained. "So after you scan someone, all you have to do is check the results," Clara ran her screwdriver over the girl and then put its head against a nearby monitor that was suspended at eyelevel.

"The Doctor's race, the Time Lords, they have two hearts. This is fairly rare, and as you can see, us humans only have one… heart?" Clara said, pausing as she looked at the monitor.

"But that's… impossible" Clara said. "There must be some malfunction."

Clara scanned herself and put the image up on the monitor, it showed one heart, like it should. Then Clara scanned the girl again and put the image up; there were clearly two hearts.

"Doctor?" Clara said, looking at the girl.


	8. Infiltration

Clara ran multiple tests on the girl, scanning her with the sonic screwdriver and even taking a sample of her blood, and when the tests were done, she concluded that the girl was not a clone, duplicate, replicate, imposter, or shape-shifter; she was the Doctor.

Clara sat on one of the benches in the control room, stunned. Sure, she had seen the doctor regenerate before. She had been prepared for a new face, a new body, a new personality, but the Doctor had always been the Doctor, and this girl did not seem like a Time Lord, much less the Doctor. And the worst part was that the Doctor didn't remember anything, even the most general information seemed beyond her, she hadn't even recognized the Tardis.

Clara felt helpless: she didn't know how to stop these aliens, what they wanted, or even what they were; and the girl didn't even seem interested, she just kept walking around the room, staring into space, and humming. This girl wasn't the Doctor, she couldn't be. The Doctor was a man of action and strategy, always concocting plans, and always saving the day. How could this girl be him?

"So, what do we do?" the girl finally asked.

"I… don't know," Clara confessed. "Uh, well… first, we should probably find a way onto their ship."

"Already done," the girl said, then elaborated. "The aliens found out what the box was and I heard them say they were bringing it aboard their ship. We should be on our way by now."

"Okay then, next we need to figure out what these aliens are, it might give us a clue what they want," Clara said.

"I know that one too," the girl said, cheerfully. "There are two alien races at work here. I think. The fish-faced ones are Svinge'vat, and the second race I'm not certain about, but I think they're shape shifters called Asudine."

Clara stared at the girl in surprise.

"The Asudine are really the only ones that are smart enough to pull something like this off, so the Svinge'vat are probably just working in tandem with them as their muscle," the girl explained.

"Do you know what they're after?" Clara asked, hopeful.

"Nope," the girl replied. "Not a clue."

"Okay then, at least that's a start," Clara said. "So, we just have to rescue their prisoners, figure out what they're doing, and stop them."

"Oh, that sounds hard."

"Nah, it'll be easy," Clara said, joking.

"Well then, our first step has gotta be looking outside," the girl said, going to the Tardis's door and gently opening it, just a crack.

Clara joined her and together they both looked outside. They were in a storage room, and they could feel the humming of the ship beneath them, it was moving.

"So we're still in transit," Clara said.

The girl nodded.

"But once we're boarded onto their main ship, this box is going to be kept under constant guard, and when those two guards don't open up, they'll quickly realize that something is wrong," Clara said.

"Why don't we hide in one of those crates?" the girl said, motioning towards boxes. "When they come for the Tardis we can sneak around them and get onboard their ship."

The both nodded and quietly left, searching for a suitable crate to hide in. They chose one of the large, metal boxes near the entrance and opened it with their sonics. It was half-filled with compressed water vapor canisters, and there was just enough room for them to fit inside.

**

Gage didn't know how long he'd been there, in a tiny cell of his own, chained to the wall. He heard the voices of people outside, and from their words he knew that there were more prisoners, and that they were split into two groups: those who did manual labor and those that were sent to the aliens as test subjects for their experiments. Gage knew that one of those fates awaited him, his brother, and their friends. He wondered which one he'd get.

He cursed his stupidity, thinking about how careless it had been to leave the door open. And then he realized that it hadn't been him. He had gone in right behind his brother, but he couldn't remember who had gone in after him. And a sudden, dreadful thought crept into his mind: what if the door had been left open intentionally, just a crack? One of them could be working with the aliens… He dismissed the thought; it was ridiculous, none of them would help these monsters.

But then again… he was alone in his cell, and had no idea where the others were. And Jin had been acting very uncharacteristic: showing up at his apartment, asking for his help; it had been him who had gotten them all involved, and then, he had been the most curious about that strange blue box, wanting to see what was deeper inside. Could it have been him? Could he have even been replaced by one of the aliens? Gage shook his head, thinking about how stupid and paranoid he sounded. Leaving the door open was a simple mistake, anyone could have made it. It was silly to suspect his friends.

His thoughts drifted to escape. He had looked around the room the moment he had been thrown in, and there was nothing to help him. He was firmly secured to the wall, a shock collar on his neck prevented him from misbehaving, and he knew he was in the middle of the desert, without food or water, so even if he got out of the ship it would be a long, hard walk back to Roswell. So, he wasn't going to be escaping, not on his own anyway. There was the girl they had met, she had wandered off deeper into the ship before the aliens had come for them, and so he didn't think she'd been captured. And there was also that unconscious woman they had picked up (possibly an alien and the owner of that box). But the girl was odd and possibly crazy, and the woman was unconscious, possibly dead, and likely captured.

Gage sighed, thinking how impossible it was that he'd escape. The door to his cell unlocked and a large, fish-faced guard walked in, undoing his shackles from the wall and holding the chain in his hands as he pushed Gage out.

Gage noticed other people being thrown out of their cells just like him, and Gage caught glimpses of Will and Jin. Where was Peter? He tried calling out to them, but the moment he opened his mouth, the guard hit him in the stomach with a baton; he shut up. Then they were all shuffled into a line, and Gage was at the very back. The room they entered was very large, and its walls and floor were rounded into the shape of a circle. In the middle of this room Gage saw the source of the voices he had heard earlier: dozens and dozens of people; all chained to the floor, generally unkempt and unwashed.

The line of people was led to the end of the room, where one guard pointed at prisoners and then motioned off in different directions. Gage guessed that he was sorting them, choosing who would go where. He strained to see Jin and Will ahead of him, but couldn't. And then finally it was his turn, and he too was herded off to an unknowable fate.

**

Clara and the girl's plan went well, and before long they were slinking around the ship's hallways. When they found a hidden, unused closet to hide in, they finally discussed their plans.

"We have to save the prisoners and find a way to stop the aliens, plus, I get the feeling that this ship is huge. There's no way we can cover it all, and do everything we need to," the girl said, whispering.

"Not if we stay together, but if we split up we could cover this ship twice as fast," Clara suggested.

"Just what I was thinking," the girl said enthusiastically. "So, how about I go look for the prisoners and you find a way to stop the aliens."

"Just what I was thinking," Clara said back to the girl, and she couldn't help but smile. They both exited the closet. The girl turned right, and Clara turned left.

**

The girl walked along, playful, humming softly to herself and swinging her arms and legs. She couldn't help but think of herself as a nameless girl, even though the woman named Clara had said that she was the Doctor, that that was her name, it didn't feel like it. It felt better to be a nameless anybody, than whatever it was she was supposed to be.

Up ahead of her, at the end of one hallway, the girl saw an interface. She went up to the panel and ran her sonic screwdriver's scanners over it. She found that it was surprisingly easy to hack the systems and download the ship's schematics to the screwdriver. Strictly speaking, she didn't really need to download the schematics; she remembered them just as easily, but it was nice having a backup.

Even without the schematics, she had an idea where they were keeping the prisoners; somewhere near the bottom of the ship, towards the back. Very few ships were fitted to hold that many prisoners and this ship wasn't one of them, its brig wouldn't be big enough, so they would have had to retrofit its cargo hold for the job. And that's where the cargo holds of a ship were, at its very bottom, usually at the back; it was a practical thing. But even so, having the full schematics may come in handy later.

The girl kept walking. Whenever she heard footsteps or voices she stopped and waited for them to pass. She was very good at standing still.

Once, while she was waiting, she heard something strange.

"Yeah, they just sorted the latest group of people," a fishy voice said.

"I heard that almost all of them were sent to the experiments," added a second voice.

"Yes, yes, very strange," said a third.

"One of the new experiments was wearing this strange object on their head," said the first voice, holding something up.

The girl strained to catch a glimpse of the object, and then she froze when she saw what it was: Gage's glasses.

"How primitive," the third voice replied.

"I wonder what it's for," the second voice said.

"Well, that's why we need them, to find out," the girl said, approaching the group of aliens. "But we can't very well do that if you Svinge'vat keep taking things from the experiments," she grabbed the glasses from the alien's hand.

"Who are you?" the first guard asked, indignant.

"Who do you think?" the girl asked, pointedly raising an eyebrow.

"…An Asudine," the third guard said, horrified.

"But what are you doing, looking like that?" the second guard asked, suspicious.

"What do you think? I just came back from that ridiculous population, and when I went to my experiment, what do I find? A bit missing," the girl said, continuously asking rhetorical questions and then answering them, shaking the glasses angrily in the guards' faces.

"S… sorry, Asudine scientist," the first guard stammered, trying to be formal.

The girl paused for a moment of dramatic effect, then said. "I'll let it slide this time, but don't let it happen again." When they looked at her dumbfounded she added. "Carry on," and walked in the direction the guards had come from.

The guards turned and hurried away, just glad that they weren't going to be punished. Even though the Asudine and Svinge'vat were technically in a partnership, it was clear who was in charge.

**

Clara had wondered why the ship didn't seem to have security cameras, or any other type of sensors. And in searching for the truth behind the Asudine and Svinge'vat actions, instead she had found the answer to an earlier question. She found an empty, darkened room filled with screens arranged around two chairs, unmistakably the security room. When she tried to turn on the devices, they were unresponsive, and so she opened the panels to the devices and looked inside. The wiring was fried, and likely beyond repair.

This was Clara's first hint at what had happened to the aliens, and she thought she was beginning to understand why they were doing what they were doing, whatever that was. Clara wasn't sure what they needed all those people for, and what kind of experiments they were running, but she was almost certain that something had severely damaged their ship. And she guessed that whatever they were using the prisoners for, it was likely to expedite the repairs to their ship, and possibly find ways to get them home. She was certain that all the pieces would fall into place once she found out exactly what they were doing to the people they captured.

**

"You have got to be kidding me," Gage said when he saw the alien.

First there were the fish-faced aliens, they were the muscle of the operation, and beyond being the first aliens Gage had ever seen, they didn't really surprise him too much. Then, as he was pushed into a large room filled with complicated equipment, he saw the other race of aliens. They were exactly like the aliens he had grown up hearing about: big, oval heads; large, pure black eyes; scrawny, twig-like bodies; long, delicate fingers; not a single hair; and a multitude of different skin colors (the most common being either dull grey or bright green). Fish-faced aliens were weird enough, but this was just jarring.

That's when Gage saw his friend, Peter, he was talking to one of the aliens, and he wasn't bound.

"Peter!" Gage called out, struggling against his chains, the guard hit him in the stomach but that didn't stop him from calling out again. "Peter!"

Finally, Peter noticed him. He stopped his conversation with the alien and then walked over to Gage.

"Hmm… do keep your prisoner under control," he said to alien guarding Gage, and then to Gage, he said. "You will want to see this," and he turned one of the strange, circular screens cluttering the room so that Gage could see it.

In the screen Gage saw Peter, he was huddled outside in an alley, getting drenched in the rain. The Peter with Gage pressed a control for the screen, and the image panned out. Gage could see the city: tall and grey, with impossibly high buildings and flying machines weaving in-between them.

"What?" Gage began.

"One of our experiments," Peter replied. "It was easier to assume a form I already knew than to try to create one from scratch."

Then something strange happened, like all his features had been blurred out, and Peter changed into one of the big headed aliens.

"I always get the chin wrong," the alien said, putting its incredibly long fingers to its almost nonexistent chin, and smiling from its tiny, lipless mouth. Then the alien motioned at the guard, and Gage was dragged away again.

"Svinge'vat," said one of the big headed alien scientists to the fish-faced guards. "The calculations are made, we are ready to begin."

And the fish-faced aliens, the Svinge'vat, moved in concert, escorting their prisoners to the front of the room, where a semicircle of large, glowing objects had been arranged. Each of the large, ten foot tall objects was shaped like a hollow hexagon, with a metal frame and filled with a glowing, white nothingness. When a prisoner was brought up to one of the gates, the big headed alien scientists would work furiously at the control panels, and the white nothingness would fill with a mosaic of colors. Then, the prisoner's chains would be removed and they would be thrown through the device. The prisoner would disappear, and one of the empty screens lining the room would turn on. It would show the person, and they would be somewhere entirely different. A couple times Gage saw glimpses of the person drifting in space, those would only last a moment, though, before the screen turned dark.

And Gage realized what was happening. The aliens were testing teleportation devices, getting new data from each experiment. But they hadn't gotten the technology to work correctly, and so they kept sending people to random places across the universe, often they would land on a planet, but sometimes something went horribly wrong and they were abandoned in the empty vacuum of space.

Up ahead of him, Gage saw Will and Jin being led to the devices. They were struggling, trying to fight back. But it was useless, just like it had been for all the people before them. The fish-faced Svinge'vat were just too big and strong, and resistance was futile. Jin was pushed through one of the gates (Gage thought they looked and worked enough like gates that he could call them that), and Gage looked around the room, desperately trying to find Jin's screen. There, to his left, Gage saw a new screen turn on, and Jin was standing in a large, gleaming metropolis, brighter and shinier than anything Gage had ever seen.

Next they threw in Will, and again Gage looked around the room, desperate to see Will's fate. With some effort he located the right screen, and there he saw Will, sitting down in an empty, green forest.

Ahead of Gage, more people were pushed into the teleportation gates, and slowly the line dwindled until only he was left. The guard firmly held Gage's arm as he undid the shackles around his wrists; the gate glowed a patchwork of different colors, always changing; and finally it was his turn. He stepped up to the device, held by both arms, and then, he was thrown through the gate.

As he fell, he held his breath and shut his eyes, his heart beat wildly in his chest. And then, he landed painfully on hard, cold metal. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at a metal ceiling, the room was filled with awkward, bright light. He turned his head towards the source of the light, wondering where he'd been teleported to, and saw the gate sitting above him, still glowing furiously. He was still in the ship. What went wrong? And then he realized that the aliens would undoubtedly know he was still there, and would come for him again, and that this was his chance to escape. He sat up quickly, but a hand clamped over his mouth from behind, and another hand grabbed his arm, dragging him away.

Gage was led awkwardly from the spot, half dragged really, and completely unbalanced, so there was no way to fight back. The person dragged him past the scientists, along the shadowed walls of the lab, and through the doorway into the hall beyond. Then the person let him go, and Gage spun around to face them.

"Hi-ya Gage, long time no see," the girl said, and Gage just stared at her unbelievingly, it was the same girl from before. So she had escaped, and come back for them.

"You," Gage said, pointing at her. "But… how?"

The girl held up the wand device and said. "It's called a sonic screwdriver, or so I've been told, and it can do all sorts of things. All I had to do was cause the gate to malfunction in a very specific way, that is, momentarily have it go back to the state it was in before it was given commands. So it projected light like always, but didn't lead anywhere. And then I snuck up behind it and pull you away."

"But Will, and Jin, and Peter," Gage said, looking back at the room. "They've been teleported across space to god knows where, and they're trapped. We have to save them!"

"Well, actually they've teleported across time and space, but I get the general idea," the girl replied cheerfully. "At the moment I have no idea how to save them. But don't worry, that unconscious woman we helped, her name's Clara, she's awake now, and she has a time machine, the blue box that's called a Tardis, and they're both on this ship. So we have a way to save your friends, but first we should probably stop these aliens, save the prisoners, and then escape."

Gage opened his mouth to respond, but the girl just smiled, took him by the hand, and pulled him away.


	9. Heart to Heart

"So, where are they?" the girl asked. "And, how many of them are there?"

"Prisoners?" Gage asked, the girl nodded and he replied. "There were dozens of people there, I don't know exactly how many. And, I know we had to walk a lot before we got to the lab. There were also a lot of stairs we walked up. But I think we're going in the right direction."

The girl nodded and they continued walking, keeping as brisk a pace as they could manage.

"We're going to free the prisoners first?" Gage asked.

"That's the plan."

"What exactly is the plan?"

"Beats me," the girl said with a shrug. "I guess we'll know it when we see it."

Gage looked incredulously at the girl, not entirely believing her. She had the look on her face of someone with a plan, someone with an incredibly questionable plan. And he didn't like that. Before he could question her further, they heard footsteps approaching. The girl pushed Gage against the wall and then leaned casually against the wall beside him.

"You two!" a voice called out. "Identify yourselves!"

The girl pushed off against the wall and turned to face them, Gage followed her lead. When he glanced over at her face, it had an expression like no other he had seen on her before: it was completely blank, emotionless, and filled with a cold, unquestionable confidence.

"Hey, it's that girl from before," the second guard said, motioning at the girl, and then nodding respectfully as he stated her title. "Asudine scientist."

The first fish-faced guard snorted and said. "Her? She's no Asudine, much less a scientist."

"Oh really, what makes you so sure?" the girl asked coldly, her voice devoid of emotion.

And this took the guard aback. He paused, now uncertain.

The girl looked at the second guard, the one that recognized her from before, and continued. "I told you I needed the glasses, and now I have my subject as well, a complete set. So if you don't mind, I think it would be best if you stood aside and let me be on my way," the way she said it is was casual, dismissive, and dangerous; it left no uncertainty that she could and would make good on her unspoken threat.

Both of the guards went stiff, a feeling of coldness creeping up their spines. They stood aside without a word, bowed their heads, and let her pass. The girl grabbed Gage by the arm and led him away.

"How…?" Gage began to ask once they were out of earshot.

"Shush," the girl hissed. "Not now."

They continued walking, the girl dragging Gage along by the arm; then, suddenly, the girl stopped.

"Sonic screwdriver. Just point and think," she said to Gage, handing him the device. "It's telepathic, it'll sense what you want," and then she pushed Gage into an adjacent hallway and continued walking.

Gage sat in the lightless passage, stunned for a moment, but before he could recover, four guards came running down the hallway. Gage watched as they threw the girl against the wall, twice, and then pushed her to the floor, tying her hands behind her back. She looked up at Gage, her gaze was steady and demanding, like she wanted something from him. Her eyes flickered from the screwdriver to Gage, and then to the hallway beyond. Gage realized she was telling him to continue her mission, to save the prisoners and escape. Then they pulled her back up to her feet and led her away.

Gage sat, stunned, in the empty hallway, devoid of light, or urgency. Up until that point he hadn't had the time to miss his brother or friends, everything had been survive and hide and escape. He had followed the girl because she had seemed to know what she was doing, more so than him anyway, and though he had worried how they would save the prisoners, the full weight of it hadn't been on his shoulders, not until that moment. And then there he was, alone; he may never see his brother or friends again; he may not even live to see the next day. The world suddenly seemed impossibly dangerous and labyrinthine; so many uncertain, twisting paths, too intricate to decode, and too confusing to follow. He didn't know what to do.

Gage looked at the device in his hands, and felt utterly lost. Then he thought of his brother, and Jin, and Peter. They were depending on him to escape and come for them. And that girl, she had let herself be captured so that he would have more time to rescue the prisoners and escape, she had believed in him, and she needed his help too. Gage looked back at the sonic screwdriver in his hands, closed his eyes for a moment, and then set off down the hallway, towards the prisoners, holding onto the screwdriver like it was a lifeline back to reality. And, maybe it was.

**

The girl was led through the ship to a small, dark room. It was entirely empty except for one feature: a throne-like seat bolted to the middle of the room. A pale, young woman sat on this throne, her eyes closed, her hands resting comfortably on the armrests. Her hair was as white as the girl's, and her skin was just as pale as her hair; there seemed to be some kind of decorations covering her skin, almost like tattoos, but the ink wasn't colored, instead it was shiny and iridescent, like some type of gloss. She was wearing a long, flowing white dress, it had thin straps and was simple and unadorned; it fell all the way to the floor, covering her feet.

The girl was thrown to the floor in front of the woman and chained just out of reach of the throne. Then the guards left, in a hurry, and the girl stood up, facing the woman.

"So you knew from the beginning that you would be brought here," the woman said, her eyes still closed.

The girl said nothing.

"Then, the question is why," she continued. "… If you are planning an escape, I can assure you that it is futile."

"No, I'm not," the girl said.

"You are telling the truth," the woman stated, tilting her head to the side, curious.

Again the girl said nothing. And for some time neither of them said anything at all. The woman remained in her seat, her eyes still closed. The girl continued standing, not even trying to escape.

"You're the one who took my memories," the girl said, at last.

"You're…!" the woman said, the realization dawning on her.

"Apparently I'm someone called The Doctor," the girl said. "But you'll excuse me if I don't claim that name, as it means nothing to me," her voice had an uncharacteristic bite to it; a deep, old bitterness.

"I am Siv'Irai," the woman said, slowly opening her eyes, all three of them.

Her two normal eyes were almost normal, except for the iris's deep violet color, which seemed as iridescent as the markings on her skin. Her third eye was set horizontally in her forehead, above and between her other two eyes, parallel to them; it was also the same exact color. Other than being an excess eye, it was also remarkable in its lack of sclera: it was all shocking violet and black pupil, no white.

In general, her eyes seemed almost vacant; staring out into the room, not even looking at the girl, but it was her third eye that the girl found unnerving. It was almost as if it had a power of its own, and could look inside a person, to their very core. And she was almost afraid, wondering what that eye saw.

Suddenly, a name came to her: Ra'hi. She tried pulling out more information, but all she could find was the name. Her mind was still as blank and unyielding as a wall; her memories a blank, unreachable mass.

"Such a cute face," Siv'Irai said. "So soon after regeneration, you must still be in a state of flux, your body, mind, personality, everything about you, ready to change at a moment's notice."

"Regeneration…?" the girl began, confused, uncertain; something struck a familiar chord, but she couldn't figure out its meaning, or how this woman knew about it.

"Yes, I know everything. You see, I am their interrogator, their extractor of information," Siv'Irai said. "And a short while ago you and I were having a very different encounter. I probed your mind. I tore it apart and ripped out everything I could, as that is my job. So I know about you and your race as much as anyone can."

"Then what's my name, my real name? I doubt it's Doctor," the girl said.

"Hidden," Siv'Irai replied. "Even with such an invasive psychic probe, I could not learn your true name. You hide it well."

"What happened? Who was I?" the girl asked.

"I was never taught how to gently extract information. Whenever I use my telepathic powers, I learn everything I want, but the person I use it on invariably goes insane, and dies. Usually the process is quick, and I learn all I can within minutes. Your struggle was impressive, unique, it lasted days. But finally, you broke, more literally than most, because I never sensed your will or your mind falter, instead the strain took its physical toll, on your body and your brain. You died, and now here you are again. I must say, you look quite familiar, but I suppose asking where you got your face is pointless," Siv'Irai explained, pointedly not answering the girl. "As for your question, I can honestly say that you were the Doctor, a good man, and a tragic one."

"What does that even mean? Can you just give me my memories back?" the girl asked. "I need to know."

"Why would I do that?" Siv'Irai asked. "We are enemies."

"Are we?" the girl replied, she looked down pointedly at Siv'Irai's hands, which were still motionless on the armrests.

"Tell me," the girl continued. "You said earlier that you were psychic, you specifically said psychic probe, not mental probe or memory probe or brain probe, all of which would perhaps be more accurate, but no, you said psychic. And here I am, unable to move. And here you are, stuck in your chair, forced to rip open people's minds for others' benefit. Are we enemies? Because from where I'm standing you're as much as a prisoner as I am. And yet you don't escape. But I've already established that you have the power to, so why don't you? Tell me."

"I cannot," Siv'Irai said, and for the first time, the girl saw real emotion on that carefully blank face. "They will kill her if I do… my sister…"

"Just let me go," the girl said. "We'll find her, and escape together. I promise."

"You promise?" Siv'Irai looked at her, anger filling up her gaze. "You promise?! Promises are just empty words. Too easy to break."

"I can help you Siv'Irai, please, you have my memories, you've seen who I am and what I do, and you said that I was a good person. So please, trust me," the girl could feel Siv'Irai falter; the woman before her knew the Doctor better than she currently knew herself. She could see the Doctor's life, the doubts and struggles, the defeats and sadness, and kindness, persistence, cunning, and ultimate victories. And she knew that if there was ever someone to save her and her sister, it would be this person in front of her.

"Tell me, how long have you been here?" the girl asked.

"I do not know," Siv'Irai replied. "… A very long time."

"Don't you think that's long enough," the girl said. "You haven't seen your sister in all that time. You don't know who she is now, or if she's alright. Judging from your state, you haven't seen her in years."

And something terrible occurred to the girl, a sudden, horrible thought that she couldn't even bear to entertain, she pushed it aside as quickly as possible, but it wasn't quite fast enough. A flicker of doubt crossed Siv'Irai's face, she didn't know what had occurred to the Doctor, but she had felt the terribleness of it, and a horrible fear clutched her heart, a doubt that she knew would never go away.

"Come here," Siv'Irai said.

"But…" the girl began, and the shackles fell away from her, the cuffs opening on their own and dropping harmlessly to the floor.

"I also released the telekinetic restraint," Siv'Irai added.

The girl approached her, as she was told. But then, before Siv'Irai could return the Doctor's memories, the girl went around to the back of the chair, and Siv'Irai heard strange sounds. Then an immense pressure was lifted off of her, and she found that she could move. She lifted her hand slowly off the armrest, and it shook uncertainly in front of her. The girl reappeared in front of her, smiling madly, and Siv'Irai wondered if she had actually lost her mind.

"Important stuff first," the girl said. "Now, on to business."

Siv'Irai lifted both of her shaky, uncertain hands and placed them on the girl's temples, the girl mirrored the action instinctively. A fierce, sudden doubt crept into the girl's mind; she realized that it was possible that Siv'Irai was lying, that she was undoubtedly dangerous, and maybe had been locked up for a different reason entirely. Maybe, the girl had released the beast, and was about to be destroyed, body and mind. And it was too late to go back now.

Then, the connection was made. Pain jolted through both of them, digging into their brains like needles. The girl began to understand just how little training Siv'Irai had had: even though Siv'Irai wasn't trying to rip out information, the process was still painful and inelegant. But at least she wasn't trying to kill her. And the girl was starting to get just the faintest hints of memory back.

"I just started the process to return your memories, instantly restoring them is beyond me, so you probably won't get them all back at once, and some memories you may never recover… I am sorry," Siv'Irai apologized.

"It's alright," the girl said. "I expected as much. Now, how 'bout we get out of here?"

The girl began to help Siv'Irai up, but she waved her off.

"No, leave without me," Siv'Irai said, closing her eyes. "I don't have enough strength to go. I'll just slow you down. Just save my sister."

Siv'Irai felt herself being picked up, she opened her eyes, and found herself staring at the girl's shoulder and hair.

"I'm not leaving without you," the girl said. "So you better hold on tight."

Siv'Irai did as she was told and wrapped her arms and legs around the girl, allowing herself to be carried piggyback.

"After all, I made you a promise, and I intend to keep it. You wouldn't want to make a liar out of me, now would you?"


	10. Exploring an Alien Spaceship

Clara managed to jury-rig the system to get it working again, even if it would only last a minute or two. All she had had to do was squeeze out the last drops of residual energy in the system and reroute them to one console.

With a sputtering of light, the monitor turned on, and Clara immediately hacked it with the sonic screwdriver, going through a map of the ship, and setting a destination into the sonic. She set the pathway to what looked like the nearest information system, and then she just followed the sonic; it made buzzing noises that varied in intensity, so she knew what direction to go in. Then, it was just a matter of getting there.

Clara was pretty good at the whole 'sneaking around' thing, fighting an invading force of aliens (and just hanging around with the Doctor in general) would give anyone a good sense for danger, and a superb ability for getting out of tricky situations. Plus, the crew seemed to be busy, and there also weren't too many of them, so Clara really didn't have trouble getting to the information room. And if she had run into any trouble, there always was her trusty blaster, even if it wasn't the one she was accustomed to.

She entered the room, it was empty. For a moment she was afraid that the power would be out here as it had been in the security room, but when she tried one of the consoles it turned on. They must have just abandoned the room to conserve energy, whatever malfunction or short-circuit that had wrecked the systems hadn't affected the entire ship, and this room was one of the ones that had been spared.

Clara went through the information, carefully gathering evidence and searching for clues. And then she found it, the ship's log, a record of everything that happened to and aboard the ship. She started at the beginning.

This ship was intended for research purposes, or at least, that was its original function. It was an Asudine ship, and they were perhaps one of the most prolific species of scientists and engineers that the universe had produced. Later, the mission of the Asudine ship had changed, if only slightly: instead of general research, they were supposed to focus on the issue of time travel. For this end, the very best and brightest time travel experts and their assistants had been assembled, and, to ensure the success of the mission, the Svinge'vat had been hired as guards to keep the crew and ship safe (and would also be a step towards cementing the two species alliance). But, when war broke out in the middle of the experimentation and the crew was literally trapped in a firefight, their only chance of escape had been to field test the untried technology, stranding them in the past, along with several Ra'hi prisoners.

The jump through time and space had left them with a broken ship, much of the technology fried beyond repair, and the few surviving renewable power cells were not enough to provide energy to all the remaining systems. So, much of the ship's nonessential systems had been turned off and sealed away.

Asudine technology could derive its power from almost any source, the most abundant and readily available supply being sunlight, which, for a ship intended for deep space flight, was insufficient. But the surrounding materials seemed to be more than suitable enough to meet their needs, the dirt and rocks filled with an abundance of elements. So, to facilitate their experiments and help get them back home, the Ra'hi prisoners were used as guinea pigs and manual laborers. When the prisoners ran out, the Asudine moved on to the local population: humans. They captured them from surrounding areas, making sure to take ones that wouldn't be missed, and then used them. Many were used to mine material and manually power machinery, the work was grueling and labor-intensive, but it provided what was needed to power the ship, well enough anyway. The rest were used in the Asudine experiments.

Clara continued looking through the files, wondering if there was anything else of note. And she did find something interesting: of the Ra'hi prisoners that were aboard the ship, two were not used in the time experiments. One was an exceptionally talented psychic and the other…

There was a knocking sound outside the door, like some piece of machinery being wheeled around. Behind the clatter Clara also recognized the sound of footsteps. She shut off the terminal and hid under a desk, not wanting a confrontation. She was done with the information room anyway; she doubted there was anything else she could learn.

The noisy racket of machinery and footsteps receded, and Clara left the room. She had a pretty good idea of what she was going to do next: shut down the aliens' operation, even if that meant destroying the ship, even if it meant dissecting it wire by wire.

**

Gage looked at the impossible situation in front of him and wondered what he could possibly do. He had found the prisoners, all of them chained to the floors of the large, empty room he had passed through before. There were also several guards in the room, but they didn't seem to be on alert, in fact they were pretty relaxed and unworried. But still, they had those deadly guns in their holsters, and an assortment of other gadgets attached to their belts.

He stood beside the doorway, trying to find a way to free the prisoners, but so far there was nothing. He wondered if he could disable the guns with the screwdriver, he had the distinct impression that he could, but he didn't know how, and anyway, it would be impossible to safely test the results. But what worried him even more were those other miscellaneous gadgets, as he doubted that they were all harmless. He was certain that at least one of those things was the same memory gas that they were so fond of using, which may be an advantage, if there weren't a few dozen innocents who would also be affected.

He looked around, trying to find something that would be useful. He didn't know alien technology, what they would have on their ships, what kinds of systems they installed… except that, maybe he did. He watched science fiction shows, didn't he? And there were always some systems that every space faring vessel needed: life support, climate control, communication, artificial gravity. Okay, so that last one would be useless, them being on Earth, but what about life support or climate control? Heck, he might even be able to use the communications system. But how? And if he did manage to rescue all these people, how was he even going to get them out of here?

Those two girls had gotten aboard, the girl had mentioned as much; she had also mentioned that blue box thing they had found, the Tardis. That would be useful, if he knew where it was. But he didn't, and he didn't know where the exit was either… except, maybe he did. He looked back into the large room, and knew that his suspicion was right, it was a cargo bay. And as any sci-fi geek would realize, a cargo bay had to be accessible for loading and unloading things. Those curved walls did look suspiciously like doors: the metal was set in a horizontal pattern, and that would make it easy to slide up or down to create an opening.

If he was right, then that would solve one of his problems, and all he would be left with was the guards. There were a total of five of them in the room, and each was at least as strong as two men: way too many for him to take alone. Looking at the guards he felt that he was missing something.

He tried to remember the scene with the girl and the fish-faced guards, and figure out what he missed. There had been two guards, the girl knew that they had figured out she was an intruder, but she had also known that they would wait to act, but why? They were clearly stronger, and there had been two of them, making our numbers even. Later, four guards had come after them, twice as many as before…. would they not act if they didn't outnumber their enemy? Or was it something else entirely?

If his theory was right, then all he had to do was make sure they were outnumbered, and they pretty much already were. There were dozens of prisoners after all, but they were chained, and helpless, and the guards did have guns. But the prisoners were kept in good condition for whatever work they were being forced to do, and if he could just free them… Or, maybe there was a way to get rid of all the guards at once… A plan was starting to form, and Gage thought it might just work.

**

"Why weren't you guarded?" the girl asked Siv as they exited her room and entered an empty hallway.

"In the beginning, I was," Siv replied. "I guess eventually they figured I wouldn't try anything, or that their security measures were enough to keep me confined, and that their manpower would be better used elsewhere."

"Makes sense," the girl said, nodding in understanding. "So, do you know where your sister is being kept?"

"No…" Siv replied, shaking her head sadly.

"Well, that's okay; we just need to find a copy of the ship's log. If they're the trained, avid soldiers and scientists I think they are, then they won't be able to help keeping a complete log."

"Is your memory returning?" Siv asked.

"Not exactly," the girl replied. "But I do think that some of my old knowledge and instinct is returning, and I do have some vague impressions of my past."

"I'm glad," Siv said. "I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to help."

"Well, if you really want to help, do you think you could do some psychic scanning of the area? Make sure we don't run into any guards?"

"No problem," Siv replied, smiling softly to herself, silently pleased at the thought of using her abilities to help someone instead of hurt them.

They walked along the hallways. The girl had some idea of where they could find an information terminal, and Siv read the movements of nearby guards, guiding the two of them to their destination safely.

"It's empty," Siv whispered, the girl nodded and walked through the door.

They found a darkened room filed with several desks, chairs, and computer access terminals, most of which were specifically designed to provide access to the ship's more sensitive information.

"How could they just leave this room lying around?" Siv asked. "You would think they'd at least lock it."

"They didn't think they would need to," the girl replied. "After all, they are on what they consider a primitive world, no threat of intruders or detection. And locking the doors requires a small amount of power, which they can't spare. Plus, there are probably three or more of these rooms on the ship, all they'd need is one. So they just shut off the power and forgot about it."

"I guess it makes sense," Siv said, slowly climbing off the Doctor's back, her legs gave out almost immediately, and she dropped to her knees on the ground.

The girl made her way over to a terminal, and Siv climbed to her feet, using nearby desks and chairs for support as she moved to join the Doctor.

"How do we get into the systems?" Siv asked.

"Well, normally I'd use my sonic screwdriver and we'd be in the system within moments, but it's currently on loan so I'll have to do this manually. It might take a while," the girl replied.

The Doctor walked over to the back of the room and removed an access panel. She began humming to herself as she rerouted a tiny, unnoticeable amount of power to the room. Then she walked back to the terminal, ducked under the desk and around to the back of the machine, and hacked the systems, giving them full access to the terminal. When that was done, she navigated the information database and within moments they uncovered the same information Clara had earlier.

"If the Asudine are such capable scientists, why would they hire thugs like the Svinge'vat to protect them? Especially in a time of war?" Siv asked.

"Politics, and extra protection," the girl explained. "The Asudine and Svinge'vat were trying to cement an alliance, and this would be an invaluable show of trust and cooperation. Plus, living in the dangerous times that they were, and the Asudine being the physically weak beings they are, they wanted to make certain that if things got hairy, their research would be safe. And the Svinge'vat, despite their oddities, are one of the foremost bodyguards in the universe… or at least they would be, if not for one of their minor eccentricities."

"Which one?" Siv asked. "I understand they have quite a few."

"I'm sure you're thinking of their hydration needs, and while that can be inconvenient, it's still minor compared to what I'm referring to," the girl explained. "You see, having evolved from fish, and not one of the more predatory variety, they developed a sort of 'schooling mentality'. It's ingrained in their instincts, in their very genetics."

"Schooling mentality?" Siv said. "I've never heard of that."

"You wouldn't have, it's a closely guarded secret. And a rather big flaw," the girl explained. "This schooling instinct makes them unwilling to do things in small numbers, and completely stops them from doing something if they're obviously outnumbered, or evenly matched."

The girl paused, trying to think of a suitable example.

"So, say there was an army of them. Even if they were outnumbered then they'd still fight fine, as long as they were surrounded by a group of allies, but if their numbers dwindled, and it came down to one or two Svinge'vat against two of the enemy, they would probably flee instead of fight," she explained.

"But, that doesn't make any sense!" Siv exclaimed. "Have you seen how strong they are?"

"Sometimes instincts don't make sense," the girl said. "But they come from experiences that kept our ancestors alive long enough to have offspring, and they often keep us alive too, so I wouldn't dismiss them offhand."

"I'll keep that in mind," Siv said. "Now, let's look for my sister."

"Familial instinct," the girl said to herself, smiling.

She continued looking through the database until she found the files she was looking for: the Ra'hi.

"Your people were fighting the Asudine?" the girl asked.

"No, not that I know of," Siv replied. "As far as I can tell, they just wanted to use us for their experiments."

"That, and your nifty psychic powers were also a likely selling point."

"So they wanted to conquer us?"

"I don't think so, the Asudine aren't conquerors. All they want to do is experiment and advance. They're all scientists at their core, and most of them use ethical means to collect their data, but some aren't as… moral."

"Then how do you explain their war?"

"They were probably attacked first and were just defending themselves"

"Well, moral or not, these Asudine in particular definitely aren't on the ethical side of things."

"Maybe, maybe not," the girl said. "After all, desperation can do funny things to even the best people. And they're stranded in the past on a primitive planet populated by a warlike species. I think that counts as desperate."

"Maybe…" Siv said as the text continued scrolling down the screen.

"Wait, stop! Look, my sister," Siv said, pointing at the screen.

The girl clicked on the name and a file opened.

"No… no…" Siv said, covering her mouth and backing away.

"We're too late," the girl said.

"No! No, don't say that!" Siv yelled, but already she was crying, and the tears wouldn't stop.

The girl tried to comfort her, but she knew that it was probably useless.

And that's when the door opened.


	11. Of Prisoners and Family

Gage put his plan into motion.

Step 1: disable the guards' guns, even if he couldn't check that they were disabled, he had to at least try.

He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the guns and pressed the device's largest, most centrally located button, all the while focusing on what he wanted: the quiet disabling of the guards' weapons. Hoping that the girl had been right, and that it could sense his thoughts and act accordingly.

Step 2: cause chaos; make the systems go haywire for a moment to catch the guards' attention, confuse them, and make them think that something is wrong.

Gage pointed the screwdriver at the ceiling, aiming for the circuitry, and wished with all his might for a ruckus. It actually worked. In moments the ship was going berserk: flame suppressant foam pouring from the ceiling, maroon lights flashing, sirens blaring. After a few seconds, he focused on turning it off, and then, just as suddenly as it had started, it all stopped. The room was quiet once more, and the guards were gesturing wildly, speaking quickly, trying to figure out what had happened.

Step 3: the moment of truth. They should be more receptive to commands now, so, give them their orders, be convincing, and hope they obey (and also hope for an internal communications system).

*Static*

"All guards, report to *Static*. Repeat, emergency in experiment lab *Static*, all guards, please report immediately *Static*" Gage said into the sonic screwdriver, which was hijacking the room's comm. system.

The guards turned to each other and talked rapidly, deciding what to do. But Gage could already see their minds were made up, they were going, all of them, just like he had planned. After all, who could break into such a high-tech ship and break their prisoners out? And anyway, orders were orders. At least, that's what Gage guessed they were thinking.

They rushed towards the hallway Gage was standing in, and Gage pressed against the wall beside the door, grateful that the hallway was dark and hoping that they were too much in a hurry to notice him.

They jogged past him, not even looking back, and Gage snuck into the cargo bay, immediately setting to work on the prisoners' shackles.

"Who… who are you?" one of the prisoners asked.

"I'm a friend," Gage said. "A human, just like you, and I'm going to get you out of here."

At this, everyone in the room looked up and sat up a little straighter. It was like hope had been injected into them, and they were all at attention, waiting to be freed.

The moment all their shackles had been released, Gage set to work on the doors. Moments passed, then minutes, but the prisoners were smart enough not to make noise or go running off; they knew a man with a plan when they saw one, and Gage was definitely a man with a plan, a crazy one, but they didn't have to know that.

Then, with an enormous creak, the doors opened, retracting into the ceiling with a lot of clattering and clanking, but they opened. And then Gage and the prisoners were faced with a whole lot of darkness.

"Caves?" a prisoner commented.

"We're underground?" another one asked, it was one of the new ones.

"Yeah, they've been having us mine for dirt," a third replied.

"Anyway," Gage cut in, urgently. "Escape."

And, like a spell being broken, they all raced into the caves, grabbing onto each other and the walls for support and guidance, pulling each other along if they faltered or fell. Then, they stumbled out into the glaring light of day.

"We're free," a prisoner said, stunned.

"We're not out of the woods yet," Gage said. "Come on, we've got to keep moving," he started walking ahead of them and motioned for them to follow.

"What are we walking for?!" a prisoner yelled. "We've got to get out of here. They'll capture us again!"

"We're more or less twenty miles outside of Roswell," Gage said. "No food, no water, not even proper clothes. There's no way we'll make it if start running, we have to pace ourselves."

Gage looked around, and then pointed in the direction of nearby railroad tracks.

"There, it's that way to town," he said, and started walking ahead, a few moments later and everyone followed behind him.

**

The woman that walked into the room was young, very young; she looked as young as the girl, or the Doctor, or younger. She was a pretty eccentric person, her black hair pulled back into a loose, banged ponytail, her forehead covered by a large headband, and she was wearing an eye patch over one eye; the other eye was a bright, azure blue, staring out angrily at the world.

"Sar'Irai," Siv whispered, her voice split between awe and terror.

"Siv," Sar'Irai said, giving a mild nod.

"We saw the file," Siv said. "We know you've been helping the Asudine and Svinge'vat, you've practically become a high-ranking officer."

"So?" Sar'Irai said, her voice an angry spit.

"You helped them kidnap innocent people, and some of them died! Don't you care?" Siv asked, sounding desperate. "After all I went through for you. After what they did to Kor'Inai…" her voice broke on the name.

"What's done is done. I did what I had to do, just like you."

"No, I made a deal with them. If I helped them, then they'd let you live."

"And being stuck in a cell for years is living?" Sar'Irai said. "I rather join them than rot away in a prison!"

"Well, you could join us," the girl broke in. "We're getting out of here, and we're sending these aliens back home. You don't have to stay with them any longer."

"I don't think you're going to be doing anything," Sar'Irai said, holding out her hand, the girl was lifted off the floor by an invisible force, clutching at her neck and making horrible strangled noises.

"Well, that didn't go as I'd hoped," the girl managed to say through her choking.

"Sari, let her go," Siv pleaded.

"I don't think so," Sar'Irai replied. "We are going to be getting back home, but not with her. This meddlesome girl has done enough damage."

"And if we go home, with these aliens, do you really think they'll just let us go?" Siv asked.

Sar'Irai paused, then the same angry determination came over her face again and she said. "Yes, because we'll make them let us go. We're stronger than them, they can't stop us."

"They've been pretty effective at it so far," the girl whispered, still choking.

Sar'Irai's attention returned to the girl, her eye burning with murderous intent.

"Never mind me," the girl said, waving her hand dismissively, then she whispered to herself. "I really should learn when to shut up."

"Sari, please, let's just go home," Siv begged. "We can go home now, together."

"Yes, we can," Sar'Irai said. "Right after I end this girl and her meddling friends," her grip on the girl's throat tightened.

"No, stop!" Siv yelled, reaching out with all her might.

Sar'Irai froze, her grip on the Doctor disappeared, and for a moment nothing happened. The room itself went absolutely still. Lights blinked from the machinery. The girl gasped and coughed, holding her throat. Siv'Irai was frozen mid-action, her hand still reaching out for her sister, her face a mask of horror. Sar'Irai was frozen as well, her hand still reaching out towards the Doctor; her face had changed from murderous to stunned. A single drop of blood fell from her nose; then her body went limp, and she collapsed onto the floor, unconscious.

"Sar… Ih… rai?" Siv whispered, she crawled over to her sister. "Sari?... Sari?!" she screamed.

The girl went over to Siv and grabbed her by the waist as the ship's alarms started to blare. She dragged Siv away, still screaming and crying.


	12. Escape!

The ship's alarms were blaring, the lights flashing urgently, maroon. Everything looked strange in the altered lighting. And Clara wasn't sure if it was she who had been detected, or if someone else had triggered the alarms.

Clara was in a key part of the ship, surrounded on all sides by vents, piping, and wires, just the kind of room someone would need if they wanted to set the self-destruct. Of the mess of wires in front of her, some of them had been stripped, cut, or joined with other wires. Finding this junction had been easy; finding the wires to the self-destruct mechanism easier; but actually initiating the setting was tricky, even with her sonic. It was possible though, as she had done this before, and while the actual technology may be vastly different, some things never changed. A few seconds later and she heard a click, then the ship's impending demise was broadcast over the comms.

"Self-destruct initiated," a chipper voice announced, undoubtedly artificial. "This ship will self destruct in 100 parsibles."

That was her cue to leave. Clara didn't know how long a parsible was, but she guessed it was enough time to get off the ship. Usually these things gave the crew enough time to change their minds and disarm the devices, but with Clara's tampering, this crew wouldn't be able to stop it.

She hurried back to the Tardis, the crew too busy to even notice her; she made it through the ship uncontested. She turned into the final hallway before the Tardis, and ran right into the Doctor, literally. Both of them stumbled, and then regained their balance.

"Doctor!" Clara exclaimed, and noticed that the Doctor was carrying an unconscious woman under one shoulder. "Who is that?"

"Another victim," the girl explained. "Fell unconscious from psychic shock. Long story, I'll explain later. Would you mind taking her back to the Tardis?"

"Uhm, sure," Clara replied, taking the unconscious girl from the Doctor.

"Oh, and would you lend me your sonic?" the Doctor asked, taking Clara's sonic without waiting for an answer. "Thank you!" she called over her shoulder, running down the hallway.

"Doctor! What? Where are you going?!" Clara called after her, but she was already gone.

**

The girl ran down the hallways in a mad dash. Just like Clara, she made it to her destination without as much as a suspicious glance in her direction. Everyone was running around, desperately trying to find the source of the tampering and stop the ship's destruction. No one had time for one small, white-haired girl.

She burst into the laboratory, which was deserted, as the scientists themselves were out helping with the self-destruct problem. She changed the sonic screwdriver's settings and began waving the device over the machinery. She walked around the entire room, hacking the systems, taking readings, and rewiring everything.

"What are you doing? The ship's about to explode, we have to get out of here!" Peter said, appearing in the doorway, waving at the girl, trying to get her attention, sounding panicked.

"Peter!" the girl exclaimed. "You're alright! Gage said you'd all been transported somewhere with these alien devices."

"No, they just got the others. I wasn't part of the experiments," he explained. "Please, tell me what's going on. What do these aliens want, what's happening?"

The girl paused, frozen for a second. Then she turned toward Peter.

"Perhaps you'd better tell me," she said, waving her sonic over Peter.

'Peter' disappeared, his disguise shifting in and out of focus before settling on the alien's true form.

"How did you know?" the Asudine asked.

"Peter was part of the experiments. I collected all this data, and I'm sure he's in there somewhere," the girl said, motioning around them. "Besides, I trusted Will."

"Trusting one of those primitives?" the Asudine said, almost snorting in its derision. "And here I thought you were intelligent."

"Those 'primitives' have a knack for survival that both our species could learn from, not to mention their almost demented sense of loyalty to those they care for. Gage wouldn't jerk my chain, or make a mistake like that, not when it came to the people he loves," the girl said.

"That's wishful thinking, more than that, it's reckless."

"Yeah, I'm a world-class reckless, wishful, idiot. So sue me," the girl replied. "But I think you already know that the ones that survive and live on are the ones that adapt. It's what's kept your crew alive all these years, am I right? You chose those you cared about you, your crew, over any ethics or morality, and you sacrificed dozens of living beings to keep them safe. So I don't think really you have the right to judge anyone."

"You talk like I'm the one behind this, like it is my crew and ship. Like I am the captain."

"No, I doubt you're the captain. But I'm guessing you were a senior officer. And I'm guessing that when your captain died, probably in the crash, you were the one left in charge. You weren't ready for such responsibility, but it was thrust upon you, and you felt that you had to do everything in your power to keep your crew safe."

"Yes…" the Asudine said. "But how could you guess that?"

"Just a feeling of familiarity," the girl replied. "Don't worry, your troubles will be over soon. You're going home… if you can stop the self-destruct in time, which, considering your species' reputation, I think you can."

"You are mistaken, even if we stop the destruction protocol, then all that will await us is more useless experimentation, more deaths on our hands, more justifications."

"There are two kinds of experiences: ones that make you better, and ones that make you worse. You did what you thought you had to do to protect those you care about. But if you don't learn from this experience and become a better person, then yes, these deaths will all be on your hands and you'll have become a monster. So don't disrespect their memories. Become a better person. I'm giving you your second chance."

"It won't matter, we will die on this planet, and no one can save us."

"And that's where you're wrong," the girl said, smiling widely. "You see, I'm a Time Lord, as in, lord of time. So I'm pretty handy with the time travel gig. I've already rewired your systems, and in, oh, five minutes or so, you'll be back home, more or less on time for tea."

"But that's impossible!"

"Entirely," the girl said. "That's why all your experiment stuff will mysteriously go kaput after the trip, computer memory erased, systems fried beyond repair, your luck only having carried you through time and back again. Sorry, got to conserve continuity and all that jazz, I'm sure you'll find it in your hearts to forgive me."

"Just who are you?" the Asudine asked.

"The Doctor," she replied. "And you're welcome."

**

Clara dragged out both of the Svinge'vat guards from the Tardis, they were conscious, but couldn't seem to hold onto any thought for more than a couple seconds. Then Clara went back inside the Tardis and waited, all the while the countdown grew nearer, and while she figured that she was safe in the Tardis, the Doctor was still outside, and every moment that passed came with more uncertainty. Finally, she was near panic, and so she decided that she needed a distraction.

She went over to the Tardis console and studied the controls, the Doctor back in her universe had taught her how to operate the Tardis, but the controls here seemed to be slightly different and she wasn't sure that she could fly it.

The doors opened and closed with a loud creak followed by an echoing bang. Clara looked up and sighed with relief, it was the Doctor.

"Where did you go?" Clara asked.

"Sorry, I had to give a moving speech," the Doctor replied, walking up to the console, she tapped Clara's sonic to the machinery, transferring all the data she had collected to the Tardis. Then she handed back the sonic.

"Did it work?"

"No idea," the girl shrugged. "In fact, I may have just let a murderous psychopath escape."

"Not for long," Clara said. "This ship will explode in a few minutes, taking all these monsters with it."

"Yeah, self-destruct," the girl said. "So, when did you become so deadly?"

"When aliens killed everyone I loved and threatened everything else."

"Oh right… adaptability."

"I adapted, and I'm alive. The Doctor, my Doctor, didn't, couldn't, and he died."

"Right… so, anyway… what was I like, before this?" the girl asked.

"You were… different," Clara replied. "Counting my brief encounter with your past self in this universe, I've known three versions of you. The first was very kind, and sort of goofy, but it was him hiding his loneliness with cheerfulness. He liked being the Doctor, being a hero and saving everyone. The other two didn't hide what they felt, they were abrupt, abrasive, and angry, and a part of them hated being the Doctor, or they just got tired of it, sometimes they didn't even try saving everyone."

"Which did you prefer?" the girl asked.

"They were all the Doctor."

"And now I am… wow, that's a lot to live up to… so, how do we fly this thing?" she asked.

"You mean, you don't know?" Clara asked, more than a little worried.

"Nope, not a clue."

"Well, why don't you try, it might come back to you."

"I'm sure that won't end badly," the Doctor replied sarcastically, but she studied the console anyway, looking for a hint of where to start.

She stood in front of the multitude of buttons, levers, screens, and other miscellaneous controls, looking at them all with uncertainty.

"Is it coming back?" Clara asked.

The Doctor shook her head, no. She walked around the console, and then walked around it again.

"Doctor," Clara prodded.

The Doctor sighed. "Well, here goes nothing," and then pulled a lever at random.


	13. Homeward Bound?

Gage and the other prisoners were free. They had reached Roswell, most of whose citizens were still in a memory-less stupor.

As the people's memory began to recover, they wondered what had happened to them, what had caused their near fugue states. The government was contacted, statements were released to the public, all of which were excuses because even they didn't know what had happened. They claimed that it had been caused by a major gas leak, creating symptoms like hallucinations, forgetfulness, and memory loss. The people of Roswell didn't entirely believe their story, and would claim, in their usual tourist trap style, that it had been the work of mischievous aliens. Few of them suspected that for once they were right. The prisoners that had been held by the aliens knew better than to recount their experiences, and gladly accepted the story of hallucinations accidentally induced by a gas leak. But Gage knew better.

As the days dragged on and programs were set up to help those still memory-less (or missing, or in need of psychological counseling), and schools and workplaces were shut down indefinitely, and the people tried to return their hijacked lives to normal, Gage was the only one firmly stuck in the past. He had no interest in moving on, no wish to return his life to a semblance of normalcy. He took to sitting down, looking up at the sky, and waiting for a miracle. He had been separated from his twin before, but this time was different. Now they were light-years, and centuries, apart. Gage had never felt such emptiness before; it was overpowering. And the one person he could talk to, Peter, was gone as well.

Sometimes he found himself staring at the pictures of the people he cared about, most of which were gone. More than once he picked up the phone with the intent of calling his parents and telling them what happened, every time he ended up setting the phone back. Finally, four days after the amnesia attack, he decided to go out for coffee. He sat outside with the overpriced drink in both hands, and found himself looking up at the stars again. He couldn't tear his eyes off the bright points of light, and he wondered if the girl and Clara were out there looking for Will and the others, or if they'd even made it off the ship.

He had heard that the ship disappeared, or rather, he had made the inference. A news station had reported of the mysteriously ending railroad tracks, leading only to a large, empty crater. That combined with the lack of further alien activity was enough to convince Gage that they were gone. And now so was his last hope of saving his brother and friends.

"I've heard that it looks better close up," the girl said.

Gage flinched at the sound of her voice, startled out of his reverie. "You… you're back. Did you find them? Are they alright?"

"I haven't had the time to go searching for them yet."

"What do you mean? You've had four days!"

"Well… not exactly," the girl said. "I do have a time machine… and, you see, it's only been a half hour."

"What… but…" Gage began, his question fading into incoherence before it had even started.

"How about we start from the beginning?" the girl said, walking over to Gage and offering her hand. "Hi, I'm the Doctor. I'm an alien that travels through time and space. Would you like to join me?"

Gage shook her hand, puzzled. "Sure. I mean, yes, yes I want to join you very much."

"Good," the Doctor replied. "Then what are you waiting for? Let's go."

"Oh, right," Gage said, then he remembered the sonic screwdriver. "Um, wait, this is yours…" he pulled the sonic out from a pocket in his cargo pants and returned it to the girl.

"I completely forgot about this," she said, walking away, Gage followed.

**

They arrived at the Tardis some time later. The Doctor introduced Siv'Irai and Clara to Gage, and made sure everyone was up to date.

"So Doctor, can you really find Will and the others?" Gage asked.

"Yes, with all the data I collected from the Asudine lab, I should be able to determine their exact locations in space and time."

"Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go get them," Gage said.

"Uh well, you see, we need a bit more time to actually find them," the Doctor said, "But don't worry, it should just take a few hours. And anyway, everyone needs to sleep. Clara and Siv have just been through extremely stressful stuff and must be exhausted, and Gage, you look like you haven't slept properly in ages."

"Okay," Gage replied reluctantly, he turned to leave the Tardis.

"Uhm, the Tardis does have bedrooms," the Doctor called after him. "Clara, why don't you show them around…?"

"Oh. Sure. Right," Clara said, she led Gage and Siv out of the control room and through the Tardis's multitude of hallways to their rooms.

The Doctor, now alone, began working to locate all the people that had been lost through time. She may not remember who she was, or what kind of person she had been, but this feeling was unmistakable: determination. She would find and rescue everyone that had been lost. She would never give up.


End file.
